


You know where to find me

by LorianO



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, M/M, Pining, Sex Jokes, a lot of butterbeers are drank, a lot of kids are running around, and dumb dumbasses not understanding anything, i do love a nice self-sacrificing bitch, mentions of past traumas, no sex scenes per se but very heavily implied, overall feel-good but with a lot of feels, there's quite a bit of quidditch too, they're neither ennemies nor friends at the start so let's say cordial acquaintances to lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-02-08
Packaged: 2021-03-18 10:08:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28990470
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LorianO/pseuds/LorianO
Summary: “Harry, your nemesis is there!”“Hi, Draco.”“Are you allowed to say hi to your nemesis?” Debbie asks with a frown.“Yes, that is how you great them.”Debbie seems to think about it for a couple of seconds, then turns to Draco.“Hi, nemesis.”“You can call him Draco.”“No, I’d rather call him nemesis.”***The war has been over for more than a decade, Harry spends his time hanging out with kids, and Draco would very much like to understand what has become of his old nemesis.
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 22
Kudos: 141





	1. Chapter 1

Harry smiles as he puts on his glasses and catches sight of Hogwarts through the window. It never gets old. He gets out of bed, sniffs a couple of t-shirts until he finds one that he deems okay and lets the others fall to the floor. He’ll do laundry tomorrow, he thinks for the fourth day in a row as he puts his wand in the back pocket of his jeans.

He takes a quick trip to the bathroom and, before leaving, briefly runs his hand through his hair in a useless move to appease it.

He is stopped at the bottom of the stairs when he hears his name through an open door.

“Harry!”

He turns back and leans against the doorframe.

“Morning, Padma.”

She is sitting behind a wooden desk covered in parchment, her hair neatly tied on top of her head and a quill in her hand as another one moves without help on her left.

“You remember the ministry inspection today at nine?” He nods, and she continues. “I have a last minute meeting with parents, so can you welcome them and give them a tour while I finish? It shouldn’t take long.”

“Sure. Don’t worry, I will do honour to the place,” he smiles as he sees the tension in her shoulders. “It’s just routine, anyway, I will wow them with our top notch installations and projects before you submerge them into paperwork.”

“Thanks,” she exhales. “I’ll owe you.”

“You’ll pay me back with a butterbeer,” he waves as he leaves.

Voices of children echo through the dining hall as he gets in, and he waves at the few adults supervising the room. He’s barely grabbed a coffee when a tiny pair of hands catch his – other – wrist.

“Harry! Can we play quidditch this afternoon? You said when the weather was good enough we’d have a real match. The weather is good enough, right?”

“Yeah, sure, the weather is good enough,” Harry laughs as he shakes the boy that has attached himself to his arm. “I’ll go check the field to make sure it’s okay, and if it is we’ll have a real mach after lunch, alright, Dan?”

The boy turns towards the closest table and rises both of his thumbs in the air, creating an eruption of joyous cries in his audience. He then turns back to Harry and asks: “Come have breakfast with us, please?”

Harry smiles at him and pats his head. “I’d love to. Let me grab some food and I’ll join you.”

A few minutes later, he finds himself seated in the middle of a gang of seven to nine-years-old, barely able to swallow a bite in between their relentless questions.

“Harry, can I borrow your wand?”

“Harry, can we play with a real speed snitch today?”

“Harry, look at my shirt! It has a red car on it!”

“Harry, how long does a hippogriff live? You said you knew one who was twenty years-old, but Dan doesn’t believe me.”

“Look, Harry, look, I can fit half an orange into my mouth!”

A reducing spell and dozens of excited exclamations later, he gets up as he looks at his watch.

“Sorry, guys, I gotta run, but I’ll see you this afternoon on the pitch, alright?”

They all wave at him as he disappears into the hall, wondering if maybe he should wear a jacket for meeting the ministry worker in a more serious outfit. He’s about to go towards the stairs when a voice calls behind him.

“Good morning, Potter.”

***

Potter turns towards him with an expression of surprise, but it quickly disappears as he runs one hand through his hair as he extends the other toward him.

“Morning, Draco,” he smiles as he shakes his hand. “I guess you’re the one doing the ministry inspection?”

Draco releases his hand and flexes his fingers. Next to Potter, he feels overdressed in his suit, and yet he knows that it is Potter who is actually underdressed. He just has that look about him that makes him look good in whatever he wears.

“I have a meeting with the headmistress,” he answers.

“Yeah, right, sorry but she had a last minute meeting with parents, so she won’t be able to see you right now. But come on, I’ll give you a tour before she bores you with paperwork. That’s your first time here?”

Draco nods as Potter starts walking, beckoning him to follow with a wave of his hand.

“Well, then, welcome to the Tonks and Lupin school and orphanage.”

Of course, Draco knows of the place. The Tonks and Lupin school and orphanage has been the talk of the wizarding world since it was founded in Hogsmeade about a decade ago. How Harry and Andromeda had founded the place to raise the war orphans who couldn’t be taken in by relatives, how it had gradually grown to welcome any children that needed it, then developed into a school for wizard kids who weren’t always orphans, and not yet of age for Hogwarts. As the number of children had expanded, so had the team and the building. What was once a family business in a tiny Hogsmeade house was now a well run institution with consequent staff and a luminous building on the edge of town with enough fields around to have ten times the current number of children running around. Though it was known that Potter was at the origin of the project, he had declined the role of headmaster when the place grew bigger, preferring, in his own words, to “leave the role to someone actually competent for that.”

“I have to go check the quidditch field, I promised a game this afternoon to the kids. I’ll show you the exterior on the way, and then you can see the main building when we come back.”

Draco nods, not knowing what else to do, and Potter smiles back at him as he holds the door for him. The sun is already rising high in the sky, and Draco blinks.

“So, you work for the safety and secrecy department?”

In the decade since the war, Draco and Potter haven’t exactly become friends, but the magical world is small enough that they were forced to run into each other at frequent intervals, and as Potter proved no desire to fight with him in any way or fuel the climate of animosity that had existed between them since their very first meeting, Draco eventually gave up being angry at him too. Now, they are cordial when in each other’s presence, saying hi nodding when their paths cross.

Still, Draco hadn’t expected such a friendly welcome from him, like they’re old pals who haven’t seen each other in a while. They have never been, and will never be pals.

He guesses it’s probably just how the “new Potter” is. The guy who’s supposedly amazing with children, laidback with adults, and hasn’t fought anyone or anything since he killed Voldemort.

Draco has a hard time believing all of that, even if he’s the first to acknowledge that time can actually change someone, and this is partly the reason he’s taken this assignment from his department: to find out who Potter has become.

***

Harry doesn’t really know how to act around Draco, and he certainly doesn’t want to show it. Sure, they’ve been on friendly-ish terms for years, but that doesn’t mean that they ever willingly spent any time together. Especially alone with each other.

Judging by his cold face and attitude, Draco isn’t especially pleased to be here – or to be with him. But, no matter what his original opinion of the Tonks and Lupin school and orphanage is, if there’s one thing Harry is passionate about, it’s this place, and he’s determined to show it to Draco. The ministry can’t harm the place, he won’t let them, no matter what Malfoy tells them about it. And he’s gonna show him all the best things about the institution.

“Let’s go through the botanical garden,” he says, inviting Draco through a small waist-high gate. “We’ve been developing it since we moved here, and it’s still quite small, but slowly growing. Both professor Sprout and Neville have helped set it up and furnishing it, and they also still donate some of their time to teach the children about magical plants. None of what we have here is dangerous in any way, of course, we can’t risk anything around kids, but it’s a good introduction to magical herbology, plus tending to it is a great activity for kids, to canalise all of their energy, and it teaches them to care about other living things.”

Draco nods curtly but his face shows no expression, so Harry decides to just keep rambling until he stops him. He can ramble for hours about this place, anyway.

“That black spot over there, though,” he winces, “is where Luna very kindly planted what she believed to be innocent hairy corndoodles gathered on her trip to Greece, but turned out to be very dangerous level three controlled substances plants? I don’t even remember the precise name. Luckily professor Sprout was here only a couple days after they were planted, and very kindly took them from us before anyone got hurt. She was actually pretty happy, she said it would be a good project for her seventh years. But now Luna is forbidden from bringing anything here, plant or beast or even food, that hasn’t been approved by a specialist of the topic. That’s a bit of a shame, the kids love her and hearing the stories of her travels. She’s quite a good storyteller.”

Maybe he shouldn’t have mentioned the dark spot and the dangerous plants. And Luna. Is this a concern for safety? Will Draco report about it? Maybe his friends are right and he _does_ ramble too much about the place.

But Draco is still as impassible as ever as Harry guides him as fast as possible away from the dark spot, toward a safer part of the garden.

“And here we have a simple vegetable garden, you know, for daily food. Right now we have the first courgettes, and some peas, a few radishes – though they didn’t grow very well this year, don’t know why –, and tomatoes are starting to appear even if they are still very small and green. The kids also help with that, they love eating things that they’ve helped grow, it’s a great way to make them eat vegetables, plus, like the magical garden, it’s a great activity for them. If you stay for lunch, I think we’ll have some spinach we harvested yesterday.”

Why is Draco not writing anything down? Is he storing it all in his head to complain about it later to Padma? Harry was supposed to make her job easier, not harder.

“It’s a nice garden,” Draco says with a curt nod, surprising Harry. “I can’t wait to taste the spinach. Do the kids cook too?”

Is he being ironic? Or trying to make him admit to child labour? Harry knows he has to choose his next words carefully, but he’s never been really good at that.

“Yes, they have some cooking classes, but, like the garden, it’s more of a teachable moment ? You know, for them to learn to care for others and to do things with their hands? And they’re not forced if they don’t want to? And they don’t cook the meals for everyone. Just, you know, classes.”

He stops before going too far.

Draco nods without looking at him. “Sounds nice.”

Oh Merlin, Padma is gonna kill him later. He will be the one who has to pay the rounds of butterbeer.

***

“You wanna continue?”

Draco nods, but Potter barely sees him as he’s already moving forward without an answer, and Draco can only follow.

He would have loved to give some compliments on the garden, how instructive it seems to be and how pretty it is, but, first of all, Potter is talking all the time, barely letting him put a word in and, second of all, the passion on his face as he explains everything fascinates Draco to the point of making him forget his words. People have always listened to Potter, and Draco 100% understands why. He knows how to captivate an audience, and has a form of charisma that forces attention.

“So here we only have simple courtyards and parks, you know, for the generic playing and running. We might do something else with it one day, but for now it’s good as it is. It’s nice to have space, you know? Just for… having fun.”

He looks almost apologetic as he quickly turns to smile at Draco, as if he was sorry that the whole place was not fully exploited. He doesn’t have to be. Having space is nice. Besides, the new building only opened five years ago, it makes sense that not all of it has been exploited.

“Oh, and over there, on the far side – we can go if you want, but we don’t have to, there’s nothing much to see,” he says as he points to the opposite side of the field, “we have a few enclosures that are currently empty but where Hagrid sometimes comes to show the kids some creatures. Harmless ones, of course, like bowtruckles. We have a very strict control over what he does,” he says very quickly, observing Draco closely as if expecting a snarling remark from him.

Maybe he’s right, because Draco has never been a fan of Hagrid and his teaching methods – even if he must admit that, as a teenager, he wasn’t a perfect student in his classes. But Potter is so quick at justifying everything that happens that Draco doesn’t have time for voicing any concern.

“There are always at least two other adults present with him, and every creature and animal he show has to be approved by both our staff and the Hogwarts staff. Children are also not allowed to touch and it’s merely and observation, you know, we see it, like the garden, as an introduction to what expects them at Hogwarts. The important thing is that the children get familiar with the magical world, even if they don’t understand it. To prepare them, you now? But in a fun way. Because they’re kids. They deserve to have fun. That’s what childhood is supposed to be all about, after all, no?”

He looks at Draco as if expecting an answer, a deep look that penetrates him and almost makes his breath hitch.

He nods, but again, Potter barely seems to notice it.

“So this is the quidditch pitch over here.”

They’re standing in front of a miniature replica of a quidditch stadium, complete with hoops and stalls, and even a small building that could pass as a locker room. He follow Potter to the middle of the pitch, admiring not only the place but also the growing excitement in his voice as he talks about it.

“Of course we had to resize it for the children, but I wanted everything to look as real as possible, you know? Oh, it’s all very safe, we have enchantments in front of the stalls to forbid any ball from ever leaving the pitch, but I wanted them to feel the same things they could feel on a real quidditch match, you know? The balls themselves, even the bludgers, have been made flexible so they can’t hurt anyone,” he continues as he walks toward an end of the field, “the brooms have been resized for kids, the snitch has been slowed to give them an actual chance to catch it, and the brooms are enchanted to stay in respectable distance of the ground. See?” he says as he taps one of the hoops, that reaches barely higher than his head. “At that height, we’ve had a few falls, though I’ve ended up coming up with a spell to attach them to their brooms, but they brought nothing more than a few bruises.”

“And you’re the one teaching them?” asks Draco when his tongue unglues from his teeth, watching Potter’s smile glow through the hoop.

Harry laughs and Draco has to blink.

“Yeah, I finally made some use of my brief and infamous past as captain of the Gryffindor quidditch team.”

He raises his arms, crossing them inside the hoop to put his chin on it, and his belly briefly shows, as well as the hint of a tattoo on his shoulder

“Ginny also comes sometimes, to wow them with some fancy techniques she learnt. She also gives us invitations for the whole school to some of her matches. The kids think she’s way cooler than me and they’re absolutely right.”

Draco wants to tell him they aren’t, but that’s probably the sun playing on Potter’s dark hair and proud smile influencing his brain.

So far, his only answer to what Potter has become in this past decade is “more gorgeous”.

***

Harry drags Draco through the pitch to the shed to check the equipment for this afternoon’s match and prove him that everything is safe and controlled, and then they go back to the main building by the same path, Harry rambling more and more explanations about how safe the place is for children, how they supervise everything, how it’s all protected from muggles’ eyes, and how great things generally are. Draco is mostly quiet, and Harry has no idea whether it’s a good sign or not. The increased anxiety makes him talk more and more, which gives Draco even less time to answer anything, and it’s a vicious circle he can’t get out of.

Not that he’s telling lies or anything like that. He is insanely proud of what they’ve built here, knows everything there is to know about the place and worked very hard to insure the children’s security and their well-being. He also loves to show what they’ve done and achieved to other people and, since his friends grew bored of that a long time ago, he’s somehow glad to have a new audience to introduce to the wonders of the Tonks and Lupin school and orphanage.

Inside the building, he gives Draco a tour of the dormitories, classes, common rooms, and even the administrative wings, going _in extenso_ about the protective charms cast around the place and all the features he believes someone from the safety and secrecy department might enjoy.

When he leaves Draco at the door of Padma’s office, it’s almost ten and he’s both surprised at how fast time has passed and relieved that it’s over. Now, the only thing he has to fear is Padma’s reaction after her meeting with Draco.

She asks him to give a tour – another one – to the prospective parents she was meeting with, and he gladly accepts as he shakes Draco’s hand to wish him a pleasant day.

This second tour of the day is much more relaxed as the first, and talking to people who actually want to interact with him wipes away his anxiety.

***

“Sorry to have kept you waiting, Draco,” says Padma as she closes the door behind him. Please have a seat. I hope you enjoyed the tour?”

“Yes, Potter went into great details about everything,” he smiles as he sits down.

He actually feels relieved to not be in his company anymore. Not that it was disagreeable, but there are too many things about Potter that actually distracted him from his job. He’s been straining more and more to remain professional, but Potter’s passion about the place was somewhat contagious and he probably let a couple of emotions slip away.

“Ah, yes,” laughs Padma, “Harry is always very talkative hen he’s nervous.”

Potter? Nervous? About what, a ministry inspection? Or about… Draco himself? Why would he be? They haven’t been enemies for years.

“But he’s our best tour guide. He know everything there is to know about this place, and he has more passion for it than any of us there. I mean, we all love it and would do anything to make it succeed, but he’s the founder, you know?”

“And what does he do here, exactly? Besides giving tours and teaching quidditch.”

“Whatever he wants. Well, no, not exactly, and you’re ministry so I shouldn’t be telling you that so, officially, he’s our project director, which means he’s in charge of the development of the place, of coming up with new ideas for our grounds and activities, of developing partnerships… He actually does a lot of work besides giving tours and quidditch lessons. But, you know, if one day he wants to give a cooking class or help set up a vegetable garden, no one is going to stop him.”

“Isn’t that kind of a bullshit job?”

“Between us, and off the record? Harry should have been headmaster. But he didn’t want the job. So he agreed on doing the whole public figure thing, defending the interests of the institution in face of the ministry and the general wizarding population, even if he would rather not, and I took on the more administrative side of things, which always bore him anyway. In exchange, he gets to keep doing what he likes, which is hanging out with the kids, playing quidditch and telling us about his ideas. And he’s good at it, so it’s a win-win situation.”

“Yes, I guess Potter always was good at getting other to do the things he didn’t want to do,” Draco snarls.

Padma frowns. “Don’t say that. Harry has always been ready to do what needed to be done, even when he disliked it.”

“You mean he was actually the one doing his homework in Hogwarts, not Granger?”

Padma rolls her eyes. “Are you really still on this petty Hogwarts rivalry? This was fifteen years ago, Draco. Grow up.”

The truth is, Draco feels uncomfortable hearing her talking about Potter with such praise. Not because of some leftover “petty Hogwarts rivalry”, as she just called it, but because he would so much love to have a reason to hate Potter. To be able to say “sure, he’s hot, but he’s a dick, so let’s move on from that.” Having a reason to dismiss him would make his life so much easier. But no, of course Potter has to be this passionate, perfect and kind saviour of kids who’s loved by all of his colleagues. All of that on top of his obvious handsomeness.

No, Draco can’t cope with all of that.

Which is why he says:

“This is not a petty Hogwarts rivalry. This is a ministry inspection.”

“And is it going to be a problem for the ministry that Harry can do what he wants in the institution he founded?” asks Padma with a no-nonsense face.

“Is he a safety and secrecy risk?”

“No.”

“Then I don’t think so.”

There’s no need in going after him and making him more of an issue than he already is.

“Good. So, I guess you wanted to see the documents about the protection of the place? I already have them out.”

***

The next time Harry walks in front of Padma’s office, the door is still closed, so, as lunch time has started, he takes the parents to the dinner hall so they can have a chat with kids about the place. The mixed couple – one’s a witch and the other a muggle – have a seven-year-old starting to show early signs of magic, and they are thinking about putting her to school for a few days a week, so she can make friends and start learning about magic. The witch mother is completely on board with that, but her muggle wife still has doubts about the whole magic thing and is a bit scared about her daughter’s powers and her future. Harry, having grown in the muggle world, has done his best to show her how great it would be for their kid to be surrounded by kids like her and how beneficial it would be for her entry into Hogwarts that is bound to come. It’s not the first time he’s faced this kind of situation and, even if each person is different, he now has a strategy on how to present things to get everyone on board. Having the parents talk to other children is the cherry on top of the cake of his previous presentation, so they can se how happy they are about the school.

“Hey team,” he says as he approaches a table, “can I bother you for a minute?”

“Harry, is it true we’re having a quidditch game after lunch?” asks excitedly a blond girl with messy braids.

“Yes, Nina, it’s true.”

She yells and puts her fist in the air, and he continues with a smile:

“Guys, this is Dora and Charlotte, and they’re thinking about putting their daughter Carla, who is seven, in this school. Could you please tell them a bit about your days, so they know what they can expect for Carla?”

“When it’s sunny we play quidditch with Harry!” screams Nina while standing up. “He doesn’t let us play with real balls but it’s still fun! I’m a beater!”

Charlotte, the muggle, seems a bit distraught, but Dora sits down opposite to Nina and says: “Really? I was a beater too in Hogwarts!”

Harry gestures for Charlotte to sit too, and quickly tries to reorient the conversation towards more interesting topics for the prospective parents.

Five minutes later, Padma show up, followed by Draco, and puts her hand on Harry’s shoulder.

“So, how did the tour go? Dora, Charlotte, did you like what you saw?”

Charlotte, slightly less stressed after talking to the kids, answers very politely while Harry tries to calm a still overly excited Nina.

“Keep your energy for the pitch, Nina, you don’t want the other team to think you’re tired.”

“I’m not tired! I never am, for quidditch!”

“Harry, Draco needs to perform some checking spells on the grounds this afternoon, could you accompany him?” asks Padma as the mothers get up to follow her.

“Sure,” answers Harry as he raises his head over Nina, relieved that Padma doesn’t seem in any type of bad mood towards him. “I just have this quidditch match to handle after lunch, but then I’m free. Will I need to do, or bring something?” he asks as he turns to Draco.

“No, I just need a guide,” he answers coldly.

“Okay, then. Come one, lunch’s on the house,” Harry says as he gets up, “and then you can attend the most anticipated quidditch game of the year before we head up.”

***

Lunch with Potter is less dreadful than Draco had feared, mostly thanks to the fact that they get interrupted every thirty seconds by some kid wanting to ask something to Harry about quidditch, or tell them about something they did this morning, or show him something they found or, in one occasion, just wants to hug him. Potter kindly obliges every single time, without showing any sign of annoyance or tiredness. He smiles at each kid, is amazed but each rock or leaf they show him, or by how good they did in spelling, or shows real excitement about their potential involvement in the upcoming match. The worst of all that isn’t the patience he shows or his genuine interest in children’s trivial talks, it’s the fact that those kids all seem to adore him. Sure, Draco knows that Potter is one of the most beloved wizards in the magic world, with all his defeating you-know-who thing, but the Boy Who Lived always had his detractors and haters, and never would have Draco thought that he could spark that kind of unanimous loving. Did he bewitch these children, or is he just, as the rumour says, really good with them? Sadly, from what Draco is seeing, the latter is probably true. He is sure that himself would have lost patience by the third child interrupting his meal.

When the meal is over, Potter leaves the dining hall, followed by a herd of children like some quidditch flute player. In the corridor, he accios his broom, that comes flying from upstairs, and a handful of kids fight to have the honour to climb on the latest Nimbus. The winner are a very tenacious blond girl named Nina and a the tiniest black boy Draco has ever seen. Potter levitates his broom a few inches from the floor and the excited group goes out on the field, some of the kids even asking Draco some questions, to which he feels compelled to answer.

“What’s your name?”

“Draco Malfoy.”

“Do you play quidditch too, Draco?”

“I used to, when I was at Hogwarts.”

“What did you play? I’m a chaser!”

“I was a seeker.”

“Ohhh, like Harry! Did you play quidditch with Harry?”

“We played against each other, yes.”

“Did you win? Are you better than him?”

He is saved from having to answer this one by Nina claiming:

“None of you were as good as Ginny, I’m sure, or you would play in a real team like her.”

“That’s true,” Potter laughs, “Ginny is the best seeker of all.”

Draco is a bit surprised that Potter didn’t use the situation to boast about his victory over Draco, but he isn’t going to complain.

“What house were you in, Draco?” asks Nina.

“I was a Slytherin.”

“Harry says I’m going to be a Slytherin,” says the tiny black boy in a small voice.

Draco raises his eyebrows toward Potter, who shrugs.

“You’re very smart, Jordan, and very cunning, so you would make a good Slytherin,” he answers as he puts his hand on the boy’s shoulder. “But Ravenclaw or any other house would be lucky to have you.”

“My aunt says Slytherins are evil,” a boy with spiky hair intervenes.

Potter laughs again. “That’s not true, Dan. See, Draco over here isn’t evil. And Amantha was a Slytherin too, and she’s a very good teacher, right?”

“I like Amantha,” Dan nods before getting lost in his own thoughts.

“There is no evil house,” Potter concludes. “And any house you end up in will be the one that suits you the best and it will feel like your second home.”

His tone indicates that it’s probably not the first time he’s said that. Yet, Draco can’t help himself but says:

“You had a different opinion when we were in school, Potter.”

Harry turns a sad smile towards him. “Well, it was a different time, wasn’t it? Also, I was a competitive Gryffindor who wanted to beat you in quidditch,” he finishes on a lighter tone.

Draco feels a bit ashamed of himself for trying to put Potter in a bad position. He doesn’t even really know why he did it; he knows that times were indeed very different, and he is the living proof that people can change. It’s as if he’s intent on proving, like all those years ago, that Potter is a fraud who doesn’t deserve to be admired. Maybe it’s because he has a hard time admitting to himself that he actually admires Potter – not because of his boy-who-lived bullshit, but for creating this orphanage and school that has done so much good in the after-war wizarding world; for becoming something else than what he was expected to be.

The truth is, after-war Potter reacted very different from what everyone else expected him to. They all thought he had a brilliant auror career ahead of him, right under the spotlight, that would have ended pretty early with the position of Minister of magic open just for him. But no, instead, Harry completely disappeared form the radar, not even coming back to Hogwarts, as it was found later to raise his orphan godson, and when he reappeared, it was to open this orphanage that has been his career since. He has refused to talk about anything else than that in interviews, has never hinted of having any life plans besides that, and has remained a mystery, as he always was, in a sense – though a different one this time.

The one thing that hasn’t changed is that Draco is full-on intent to pierce that mystery.

***

Since the first time he has stepped onto a broom, Harry has felt in his place on a quidditch pitch – even a small one, like this one. Here, he felt both free and in control. He knew quidditch, and he knew flying, and he felt good doing those thing.

Besides, being on a quidditch pitch with Draco Malfoy isn’t as weird as eating lunch with him. He didn’t want to ignore him, and yet he had no idea of what to say to him, so he had been thankful for all of the kids asking him about the quidditch match, giving him an excuse to limit his interactions with Draco. He wasn’t exactly looking forward to being his guide this afternoon, but he couldn’t say no to Padma. In the meantime, the promised game would stop him from thinking about it.

He separates the kids into two teams, stopping their recrimination about his unfair selection with a firm tone. They are soon flying around the field, and, with a whistle blow, he releases the four balls.

“Do you want a broom?” he asks Draco, still standing next to him, as he gets on his own. You can also go in the stands if you prefer.

“If you have a broom, I could ride one, I guess.”

With a move of his wand, Harry accios a broom straight from the changing rooms.

“It’s my old one,” he explains as Draco observes it with suspicion. “It works perfectly fine, I just bought the more recent model.”

He doesn’t wait for Draco’s response and goes up flying as he notices Nina hitting someone from the other team with her bat.

“Nina! What have I told you? You can only hit the other players with the bludgers, not with the bat itself!”

“It’s enchanted so it can’t hurt, why does it matter?”

“If you don’t play by the rules you won’t make it to the team at Hogwarts! Penalty for the red team.”

“That’s unfair!”

“If you don’t like the game you can sit it out.”

She pouts, but complies nonetheless as she flies away from him. He smiles. No matter how much Nina protests, she always ends up listening to him.

“Having trouble being respected by the kids?” asks Draco, who has flown to join him.

Ignoring the constant reproaches in his tone, Harry answers:

“Nina has always been hard headed, but she’s a good kid. Definitely a Gryffindor.”

“What, claiming her for your team already?”

Harry turns to him and smiles to hide his sigh. “She’s all force no strategy and never thinks before she does or say anything. Where else do you want her to go?”

Draco shrugs. “It just feels like you’re turning into a real sorting hat.”

“Well, kids are curious. Didn’t you wonder where you would end up, before going to Hogwarts?”

Malfoy shoots him a look that clearly says that no, he didn’t.

“Oh, right, that was clear for you. Well, some of these kids don’t know where they come from, and they all have questions about that. I – we – try to teach them that each house has its own qualities, and sometimes we tell them about this or that trait they have that could make them fit in one or the other. Anyway, in the end, they’re gonna choose it themselves.”

Draco snorts. “It’s the house that chooses you, Potter, no the other way around.”

“It was for me,” Harry says softly. He quickly glances at Draco, who seems surprised, and adds: “I don’t tell them that, because they need to discover some of the magic themselves, but yeah, the hat told me I’d do good in Slytherin, but I didn’t want to because I was a kid that didn’t know shit and thought Slytherin was evil, so I ended up in Gryffindor.” Draco seems dumbstruck, so Harry laughs. “Yeah right, can you imagine me in Slytherin? I didn’t have any of the qualities required. Dan, pass the quaffle!”

He flies away for a couple of minutes to follow the action, then comes back to Draco, who still seems lost in thoughts.

“Anyway, as the sorting hat always said, the houses are stronger united than divided, and that’s the spirit we try to give them. Debbie, don’t provoke Nina! You know how it ends! The truth is, I don’t care which house they end up in, but some of them do actually show stronger traits that makes it quite obvious. Debbie, what did I just say!”

He has no time to hear Draco’s further thoughts on the subject as he spends the rest of the match supervising the action and breaking fights. The whole thing is messy, shows no trace of strategy, and, sometimes, the only thing stopping the kids from hurting themselves is the enchantments he set up, but he absolutely loves it – and so do the children. Their reactions when the snitch is caught make it seem like the world cup was at stake, and he wholeheartedly congratulates every single one of them on their performance.

In the end, he joins Draco standing on the edge and says: “The property extends until that fence over there. If you want to go and start checking what you have to check, I’ll join you right after I’ve taken the kids back inside.

Draco nods as he gives him the broom back. “Alright. But I can work on my own, you know.”

“Yeah, I don’t doubt that. I’ll just be here in case you have any questions”

***

Draco is already hard at work casting spells when he feels Potter coming back. He doesn’t look at him, because he is focused now and doesn’t need any reminder of how Potter looked earlier on the quidditch field. Yet, the tension of feeling him lurking around soon becomes to strong and, still without turning to him, says:

“That’s some nice spellwork.”

“Yeah, Padma and professor Flitwick created it together. They’re not as strong as Hogwarts’, obviously, but still enough for what we have here. I mean, we’re also protected by Hogsmeade general defences, so it wasn’t necessary to come off too strong.”

Draco nods. From what he’s seen so far, both in his conversation with Padma and in his current checking, not only does there seem to be no infraction to the ministry regulations, but the place also appears to go above and beyond what’s usually asked. He will not admit it out loud, but he’s actually impressed.

Potter is still lurking around, silent and at a respectful distance, but Draco is still very aware of his presence. Eventually, he can’t hold it anymore and asks the question that’s been pressing at him for a while.

“Why an orphanage, Potter? Of all the things you could have done of yourself after the war, why this?”

“Because it was the most important.”

Draco turns briefly toward him and sees that he is, indeed, entirely serious.

“More important than defeating the remains of the dark arts?”

“Yes.” Potter’s tone is less categorical as he continues. “I mean, the whole point of this war was to give everyone else, all those coming after us, a better future, right? And it starts not with defeating the dark arts, because they will never truly be. There will always be someone to embrace them, no matter what happens, you know? So it starts with the children. The sooner they can understand the power of unity and the beauty of the world, both magical and muggle, the less they will want to destroy that, you know? And also, what was I supposed to do, abandon those kids? What kind of world are we building if we’re not here for children?”

“I thought this all started with you wanting to give some friends to your godson or something like that.”

“Well, yeah, I was eighteen and depressed, I wasn’t able to conceptualize all that, but that was what I was reaching for. At first I just wanted to give Teddy a world that he would belong in, even if he was an orphan, but the theory was always hidden behind that.”

Draco shoots him a glance without stopping his spellwork. Harry Potter, the Saviour, the Chosen One, who had just killed Voldemort, depressed? But Potter doesn’t notice him and continues.

“And if I wanted that for Teddy, wasn’t it fair to want that too for the other war orphans? Didn’t they deserve it too? Being an orphan is shit enough as it is, they don’t need exclusion and loneliness on top of that. None of these kids will be abandoned as long as I’m here to stop it.”

“And what, you just became a Savior of kids?”

“Beats anything else I’ve ever done.” Potter’s tone is sharp and, from it, Draco half expects him to draw his wand and challenge him to a duel. “And you know what? I’m proud of what we’ve done, and my life has more meaning than it ever did. Can you say the same about yours?”

Draco knows he’s crossed a line, and he’s sure of it when Potter adds:

“You know what, I actually have stuff to do, so if you have questions just go to Padma or anyone else.”

And, before Draco can even say anything, he’s already turned away.

Draco lowers his wand and watches him walking away. Why does he still feels the need, after all these years, to tease Potter, look for his weak spot, and belittle him and everything he’s done? That’s not how he feels anymore. So why can’t he stop antagonizing him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I clearly didn't invent hot water with this story, but it was fun to write and i enjoyed it anyway, so i hope you do too.  
> Also, neither the internet nor the Harry Potter creature books could tell me how long an hippogriff lives.


	2. Chapter 2

Harry is kneeling on the ground, showing Jerry how to dig a nice hole for some pepper plant, when he sees a familiar silhouette on the edge of his sight. He raises his head, then stands up with a determined sigh and wipes his dirty hands on his jeans.

“You okay doing it on your own, Jerry? I’ll be right back.”

He walks with a purpose and in a hurry, trying to catch up with his target.

“Draco!” he yells when he’s close enough.

Draco stops and turns back, then waits for him.

“Potter,” he salutes him when Harry joins him.

“Hi,” says Harry, a bit out of breath from catching up. “You’re back for your report?”

Draco nods.

Harry nods too.

He then takes an inspiration and says: “I just wanted to apologize. I lashed out at you last week, and you didn’t deserve it, so I’m sorry for that. I guess,” he adds with a smile: “that, after all these years and despites my best wishes, you still get on my nerves.”

Draco nods and, half-heartedly, admits: “You still get on my nerves too.” He then sighs, and adds: “I shouldn’t have talked to you like that, I imagine.”

Harry smiles, relieved. “Good. We both said things we shouldn’t have, it’s been acknowledged and forgiven, now maybe we can start over on a better base?”

“Better base than twenty years ago?” says Draco with the faintest smile.

“Twenty years, last week, who’s counting?

Draco snorts then looks away, embarrassed.

“Anyway, I gotta go back to gardening before someone plunges a weeder into someone else’s hand – and that is definitely NOT something that has happened before –, and you have a real job to do, so I won’t take up more of your time now, but how about a butterbeer tonight at the Three Broomsticks? My treat. As an apology.”

Draco seems taken aback by the offer, but ends up nodding anyway.

“Alright. I must meet with Padma when I’m done outside, so we can meet after in the entrance hall.”

“Perfect. See you then. I promise we won’t reminisce about the good old times.”

He extends his hand to shake Draco’s, but realises that it’s still full of dirt and ends up waving awkwardly as he leaves.

***

Draco was a bit nervous about coming back to the school and orphanage and running into Potter after how things ended last time but, apparently, he shouldn’t have been.

Even if, now, he’s nervous for entirely different reasons.

Working with Potter is one thing. Having a drink with him is an entirely different one. What will they even talk about? They have both not enough and too much in common for it to be comfortable for either of them.

Nevertheless, he’s in the entrance hall after his meeting with Padma, waiting for Harry to show up. To keep busy, he reads posters on the walls, mostly drawn by children to illustrate their numerous activities. A bunch of them are about quidditch, some show excursions to what he guesses to be Diagon Alley, others are of classrooms or other places within the institution. A couple even show Hogwarts. On a good portion of them, Draco notices a dark-haired figure with glasses, more or less crudely drawn. The drawings go back a few years, if Draco believes how some of them have faded colours, compared to the bright most recent ones.

He is interrupted in his observation by the sound of a gang of children coming in.

“Go wash your hands before you touch anything, none of us wants to hear Padma’s sermon about cleanliness one more time!”

Draco turns and sees Potter holding the door open as a bunch of children walk in in front of him. He smiles brightly at Draco as he notices him, but his attention is quickly diverted.

“Dan, what did I say about touching anything! Stop wiping your hands on Debbie!”

“But she did it first!”

“Debbie, don’t wipe your hands on Dan!”

“But…”

“No buts!” A handful of kids giggle. “Just, don’t touch anything. Go on, everyone to the bathroom.”

“Hey, you’re Harry’s friend from Hogwarts!” says a girl who seems to be dirty from hair to toe as she stops in front of Draco. “His quidditch nemesis.”

“Where did you learn that word, Debbie?” Potter laughs as he arrives behind her.

“Amantha taught me what it meant.”

“Well, that’s a very good word, and perfectly used. Go on, kid, stop bothering Draco and go to the bathroom with everyone else. Matty! No lingering! Don’t touch the leaflets!” He sigh and mutters “for fuck’s sake” as he walks toward a tiny boy with dark curly hair who’s holding a handful of leaflets about the school from a nearby table.

He pushes him toward the rest of the group as he wrestles the leaflets out of his grasp. He’s still holding them as he walks back to Draco.

“I swear it’s like herding cats,” he sighs. “Anyway, sorry for all that. And,” he smell his own shoulder “sorry about the smell. There may have been an incident involving manure.”

There is indeed a strong smell coming from Potter, but Draco had barely noticed it until now, hidden by the high-pitched voices of the children and the dishevelled general appearance of Harry.

He waves it off with his hand. “It’s alright. I guess with kids there are always bound to be… incidents.”

“Every fucking hour,” Potter sighs. “Every minute, if you don’t watch them. But that’s also the fun of it.”

Draco smiles back and Potter notices the leaflets he’s still holding.

“Those will go to the trash, I guess.” He sniffs them. “Yep, they also smell. Do you mind waiting a bit more? I have to check the gang indeed washed its hands and take a shower to get rid of that smell. You can come with me, if you want, to avoid getting attacked by those gremlins again.” He waves Draco to follow him, then stops and turns back. “Not in the shower, obviously. I meant upstairs.”

Draco snorts in surprise. He hadn’t thought about following Potter into the shower, but now the picture is definitely on his mind. He does his best to push it away.

“Harry!” sounds a voice as they approach the bathroom. “Were you the one who brought them back in this state?”

The woman stands in front of them, fists on her hips, familiar though Draco can’t place her.

“Yeah, sorry, Katie, we were in the garden.”

Katie Bell. She used to play quidditch too.

“I guessed that, yeah. Matty’s clothes seem bad enough to throw away.”

“Wait until you see Debbie.”

She rolls her eyes and sighs. “Merlin. You better hope Padma doesn’t see any of this. Fuck, you reek, don’t come any closer. Go take a shower yourself, I’ll handle the filthy gang. Oh, hi, Draco. Here for the inspection, right?”

“Hi. Yes. Not for the gardening, obviously.”

“Good for you. Harry always brings them back looking like they dug through the core of the earth.”

“You’ll thank me when we finally get those tomatoes!”

“Get away from me, you stinky rat!”

Potter turns as he walks away, pointing both guns fingers at her.

“Thanks for handling the kids, Katie. Next butterbeer’s on me.”

“It better be!”

Draco nods goodbye at her as he follow Harry.

Potter leads him up the stairs, which he climbs two by two, abandoning the screams of children behind them, and into a big but messy bedroom. Clothes are scattered over a chair in a corner, some piling on the floor and others falling from a half-open closet. The bed, placed in the middle of the room, cutting it in weird places, and barely leaving space to walk around it, has its duvet drawn over but still full of wrinkles, and a handful of clothes have been thrown onto it.

The desk is covered in random piles of parchments, books half open or put there as they didn’t fit on the shelves above – probably –, and a few trinkets. In another corner, next to the window, Draco spots an owl perch.

Most of the walls are covered in the same type of children’s drawing as the entrance hall, except those almost all feature a figure supposed to be Potter, with more or less details. Some photographs, both muggle and wizard, have been stuck in between the pieces of paper.

“Make yourself comfortable,” Potter says as he moves in front of him to take the clothes and parchment off the desk chair. “I won’t be long.”

With a whiff of manure, he’s gone to the closet where he seems to pick up a random assortment of clothes. He then disappears through a door that closes behind him and that Draco assumes leads to the bathroom, as the sound of running water is soon heard.

Draco doesn’t sit as instructed and keeps looking around himself, taking in Potter’s lair. Next to the door, he spots the latest Nimbus Potter was using last week, surrounded by a few quidditch memorabilia on the wall.

He doesn’t know if he should, but he lets his curiosity take the best of him and approaches the pictures on the walls to observe them closer. There’s one that seems to be from Weasley and Granger’s wedding, with Potter grinning at his two best friends, and another one with the whole Weasley family, that was probably taken at Christmas, if he believes the decorated tree behind them. A lot of them feature a boy at different ages, who must be Teddy. He’s sometimes with Potter, but mostly alone or with other people that Draco doesn’t always recognize. One picture was taken in front of the new orphanage building, and Harry is smiling widely, one arm around Padma’s shoulder and the other around an older woman, in whom Draco recognizes his own great-aunt Andromeda – Teddy’s grandmother.

Above the bed, Draco notices a small, clearly older picture. In it, a waving young couple holds a tiny, black-haired, scarless baby. Draco steps back, feeling like he intruded too far on Potter’s intimacy, and almost stumbles into the oddly placed bed. He swears and walks back to the desk, which seems a safer place. Standing there, he just takes in all of the pictures of friends, kids of all shapes and ages, people he knows and people he’s never met, all scattered on or under colourful childish drawings.

This is where Potter lives, he thinks.

Somehow, it seems fitting, and yet, for some unknown reason, the sight tugs at his heartstrings.

“You okay?” says Potter behind him, almost making him jump. “Sorry, I did as quick as I could but this stench was hard to get rid off. Sadly, there’s no spell for that, you have to do it the good old fashioned muggle way.”

He’s wearing a darker pair of jeans and a black t-shirt with a red and white peppermint drawn in the center, and he runs his hand through his damp hair before lunging on the bed to grab a hand-knit sweater featuring a golden snitch.

“You’re ready to go?” he asks as he puts it on, entangling his glasses over the neck.

“Yes.” Suddenly, Draco can’t wait to leave this room, that now seems too stuffy for him to fit in it.

Potter locks behind them and, as they go down the stairs, Draco asks, as casually as he can manage:

“So this is your home?”

“Yeah, kinda,” Potter laughs. “I have a house in London, but I’m barely ever there. Only when I need to, for work, or when I’m visiting friends. And you? You still live at Malfoy manor?”

His tone tries to be light, but Draco still hears the strain in it.

“No. My mother still lives there, but I moved to London. It’s closer to work. To everything.”

“I must admit I’ve never been a fan of this kind of busy life, but I get what some see in it. Padma actually has a flat in London, when she’s off from here. Where do you live, exactly?”

They reach the ground floor talking casually, and Potter stops at the bottom, extending his arm to hold Draco back.

“Wait. I don’t want Padma to see us,” he whispers, nodding towards an open door.

“The dirty children?” asks Draco at the same volume.

“The dirty children,” Potter nods sternly. “Come on, let’s be as quick as possible, maybe she’s turned her back to the door or something.”

He starts walking very quickly and Draco has no choice but to follow.

“Harry!” he hears behind them barely a second later. “We need to talk.”

“Not now, Padma,” answers Potte without turning back, “Draco needs me!”

He grabs hold of Draco’s wrist and walks even faster.

“We will talk about this!” Padma yells. “What did I already tell you about gardening?”

“You’ll tell me again tomorrow! Love you!”

And they’re gone through the door. Potter doesn’t let go of him and laughs as he says:

“Shit, I’m gonna owe a fuckton of butterbeers.”

He then seems to notice he’s still holding Draco and lets go of him, running his hand through his hair with another awkward laugh.

Draco clears his throat. “Why don’t you… clean the children magically before going in?”

Potter turns to him, a glimmer in his eyes. “Oh, I’ve tried. Believe me, I’ve tried _everything_. The problem with children is, no matter what you do, they will _always_ find a way to get dirty. They will bring just as much dirt in when you wash them and when you don’t. Merlin, once I took a two minutes walk on the path with Matty, and when we got back in he had a huge clump of soil in his hair. I still have no idea how it got there.”

Draco shakes his head lightly.

“I can’t fathom why you would choose to hang out with children.”

“They don’t give a fuck who I am,” Potter answers without batting an eye. He then seems to recoil as he reconsiders, and adds, while pushing his hair over his forehead in a subconscious gesture: “I mean, most adults in the wizarding world know who I am and already have an opinion about me and who I must be. That’s tiring, sometimes, because I always feel like something expected from me but I don’t know what. Kids don’t care. To them, I’m only Harry, an old dude like any old dude. What they expect from me is quidditch games and compliments over whatever they do. That’s easy to provide.” He has another awkward smile to Draco, as if to apologize.

Draco stays silent a couple of seconds before answering.

“I understand. People also often have a preconceived opinion of me. Because of my past. My family’s past.”

“Sorry. Here I am, complaining about people recognizing me, when it must have been so much harder for you.”

“It still is,” Draco admits quietly, though he doesn’t really know why. Why he would say that kind of things to Potter. “I guess it always will be.”

“It’s unfair,” Potter says, surprisingly angry at the thought. “It’s been almost fifteen years, for fuck’s sake. Most people aren’t anymore who they were at seventeen, so why should they judge us for who we were?”

“At least they love you,” Draco sighs, more bitterly than he would have wanted.

Harry stops abruptly and turns toward him. “And you think I asked for that? You think I ever wanted that? I never did. I never wanted to do what I’ve done. But I had to, so I did it. But it never was about me. It always was about what I could do.” He takes a deep breath in and turns his head toward the tavern, a few meters ahead of them. “They don’t love me, you know. They love who they want me to be. Just like they hate who they want you to be,” he concludes, staring at him.

Draco is taken aback by his anger, just like last time, but even more by the following calmness.

“I did some bad things, you know. I deserve some of the blame.”

“I know. I was there. That doesn’t mean you deserve to be blamed all your life for something you did at sixteen. Do you regret it? If you could go back in time, would you change what you did?”

“Yes,” answers Draco without any hesitation. “And you, would you?”

“No.” Potter’s answer is just as straightforward as his own. But then, he hesitates. “If I could… if I could go back in time, I would probably act exactly the way I did. But I would probably try to involve less people. Many people died who didn’t deserve to.”

“And you think you deserved what happened to you?” asks Draco, incredulous, before being able to stop himself.

“Well, I didn’t have a choice, did I?”

Suddenly, Draco feels closer to Potter than he ever did.

“Doesn’t mean that you deserved it.”

Potter shrugs, defeated, and looks away.

“Yeah, well, it happened anyway and we can’t change that now. We can only compose with what we have.” Staring back at him, he adds, in an almost defiant tone. “And didn’t we say we wouldn’t reminisce about the past tonight?”

Draco, relieved from the change of mood, answers:

“You did, and then went on reminiscing about the past.”

“Yeah, I can’t be trusted, I guess. Come on, all the best seats are gonna be taken if we wait.”

Without any further mention of what just happened, he walks toward the bar.

***

Harry waves at Rosmerta as he enters the pub, and signals two with his hand as she nods at him. He leads Draco toward a table near the fireplace, and, an old habit, sits facing the door. The room is far from full, even if a few groups and lonesome patrons are handing around here and there. A few regulars nod at Harry as he walks by them, and he nods back.

“Evening, Harry,” says Rosmerta barely a few seconds after Draco sat in front of him. “So, what did you do again?” She sets the butterbeers in front of them.

“Oh, you know, the usual putting my foot in my mouth.”

“I’ll put that on your tab, then. Anything else you boys want?”

“Could we have some fries, please? And… Draco?”

Draco seems to take in their surroundings with some sort of disgust, then answers.

“Yes, fries would be good, thanks.”

That’s right. Living in London, he’s probably used to higher standard places than the Three Broomsticks. He probably doesn’t even usually eat any of this greasy pub food. Harry feels ashamed of his battered-up jeans, his sweater knitted by Mrs. Weasley and his habits at a local town pub. Draco is wearing a suit again – a dark blue one, this time – and everything in his attitude shows that he would probably much rather be anywhere but here, at this dimly-lit table, eating fries, with a Harry Potter that probably lost all of his polishing with his previous outburst – outbursts.

“Perfect, two fries, coming right up.”

She disappears, and Harry is left on his own to entertain Draco. He raises his glass, determined to finish it as quickly as possible so Draco can be relieved of this social obligation and go back home, in London, where no one will insult him to his face.

Well.

Let’s hope for him.

“To a future where we won’t reminisce about the past,” Harry says.

Draco clinks his glass against his. “Cheers, Potter.”

They drink in silence for a few seconds, and Harry realises that Draco’ glass is not emptying as fast as he should, so he matches his pace, not to seem like an unsophisticated ignorant.

“It’s really nice, what you’ve done with the school and orphanage,” Draco finally says.

Harry is relieved to be provided with a topic, especially one he masters so well.

“Well, we were lucky that a lot of people believed in the project and were hellbent on making it happen. It was also great that Hogwarts helped a lot, it allowed us to get some, you know, respectability, straight from the start. People trusted us because Hogwarts trusted us. So, when we opened up the school, parents trusted us too. I honestly didn’t think that we’d have that much support.”

Draco arches an eyebrow and smirks.

“What, you, Harry Potter, _the Chosen One_ , weren’t expecting support?”

Harry shrugs, feeling suddenly stupid, and diverts his eyes. “I didn’t think people would care about what I did if it didn’t involve killing Voldemort or defeating the dark arts. I know,” he adds as he turns back toward Draco, “that some people were disappointed that this was what I chose to do. They thought I should be defeating evil or get involved in politics or whatever. _The_ _Daily Prophet_ talked shit about me and the orphanage for a few years before finally saying it was a good thing. Not that I care about what they print, but a lot of people do.”

“Well, _The Prophet_ has never been a reliable source.”

“No, but what they say do have an influence on what people think. Honestly, now I only have a subscription so I can know what they say, not what actually happens. I have _The Quibbler_ for that.”

“That crazy thing published by Luna’s father?” Draco smirks.

“It’s not that crazy anymore,” says Harry on a defensive tone, heated as usual by the dismissive comments on his friends’ publication. “Sure, there are still articles about the two-legged Glaridon or whatever, but they also have pretty good political and societal pieces. Much more accurate than what _The Prophet_ prints.”

Draco shrugs. “I’ll look for the next issue, then.” He takes a sip of his butterbeer and Harry imitates him.

“And here are your fries, lovelies,” Rosmerta interrupts, setting up two plates on the table. “And there’s the usual ketchup and mayo for you, Harry, and Draco, I didn’t know so I put a bit of everything. Can I get you anything else?”

“Not for now, that’s perfect,” says Harry as he catches the ketchup bottle, already salivating.

“Actually, can we have another round of butterbeers?” Draco asks.

Harry looks up at him, surprised. Their glasses are barely half empty.

“Sure thing, I’ll keep them coming, if you want.”

“Thank you,” Draco nods.

She leaves and Harry focuses on adding some mayo and mixing it with the ketchup using a fry.

“Really, Potter? Ketchup _and_ mayo? What kind of gross taste buds do you have?” Draco smirks.

“I am a simple man with simple tastes,” Harry answers while plunging the mixing fry into his mouth. “What, how does an enlightened man like you eat his fries? Salt and vinegar?”

“Brown sauce,” Draco answers in the most obvious tone as he catches the bottle. “Everyone know that’s where it’s at.”

Harry winces as he dips a couple of fries into his ketchup and mayo mix.

“Gross. I’ll stay a peasant, thanks.”

Draco chuckles, and Harry feels like it’s the first time that sound hasn’t been mockingly directed at him. He smiles back.

“So, how’s your report coming along?” He asks, munching on the potatoes.

“Good. Padma has been very thorough with the paperwork. She made my work easy.”

“Thank god for her. The place wouldn’t be running so smoothly if she wasn’t here. It was a blessing when she joined us. She was bored at her office ministry job when I ran into her at a ceremony or something and I casually mentioned how behind I was on some paperwork, and jokingly said she could have the job if she wanted. Two days later she was at the door with her resume and her conditions. She was hired on the spot.” He chuckles an runs a hand though his hair, briefly looking toward the bar. “That’s basically how everyone joined. Just by showing up at the door and saying they could help. More times than I am willing to admit, it followed a joke I made about how we could use a hand for this or that.”

“You’ve always been good at gathering crowds.”

Harry shrugs.

“They’re not doing it for me. Most of them could probably have better paying jobs elsewhere, but they believe in what we do. I’m eternally grateful for that. When we started, just me and Andromeda, the whole thing was such a mess. We couldn’t have kept on like that for very long,” he laughs. “There was much more work than what we envisioned. We probably would have drowned in a couple of months if we didn’t have support coming in pretty quick.”

“It was needed, I guess.”

“Yeah. To be honest with you, I’m a bit surprised no one did this before. I guess wizarding families have more of a tradition of taking care of their own.”

“There is something in the power of blood,” Draco nods.

Harry laughs unhappily. “Yeah, I know that, but none of this blood shit is actually about giving kids happiness or a chance at a good start in life. I don’t want to talk shit about anyone, but some of the kids here are much better with us than they would be with their remaining blood relatives.”

Draco raises his eyebrows while taking a sip of his second butterbeer.

“I will not name names,” Harry warns, pointing at him with a fry. “Just trust me when I say that blood magic can do as much good as harm.”

Draco nods. “Maybe it was time for things to change. I think we can all agree that not everything was perfect in the old wizarding world. I’m not… I’m not saying the war was a good thing, but it brought a new perspective on things that seriously needed to be revamped.”

“Yeah, I guess that was the one good thing to come out of it. Well, one of the good things, with Voldemort’s defeat, anyway.” Harry sighs and put a hand through his hair. “Well, let’s be honest, I hate to admit it but, somehow, I feel like we needed this war to… reset things, in a way.’ He buries his head in his hands. “That’s a horrible things to say. Sorry. So many people suffered from it. So many people died.”

“No, I get what you mean,” says Draco, making Harry raise his head. “It was a horrible thing, but thanks to it, things are better now.” He smiles sadly.

Harry feels somehow relieved that he wasn’t misunderstood. “I’m sorry about your father.”

Draco seems surprised.

“I mean, I didn’t like the guy,” Harry clarifies, “but he was your dad. I’m sorry you lost him.”

Draco turns away. “My father was not a good person, and he consistently made bad decisions in his life. His death is not on you.”

“Still. It doesn’t mean his loss was any less painful to you.”

Draco stares at him in a way Harry can’t quite interpret.

“Thank you,” he finally says. “I must admit that I miss him, even if I don’t really regret him.”

Harry raises his glass in silence, and Draco echoes his move. For a while, they only eat and drink, avoiding staring at each other. The humming of background conversations and clinking of glasses and plates echoes between them. Draco eventually turns to him and smiles.

“Look at us. Seems like we can’t help but reminisce.”

Harry smiles back. “I guess we’ve always been pretty bad at following rules.”

“Seems like you still enjoy to disobey your current headmistress.”

Harry laughs as he picks up the last fries in the plate. “Well, she can’t fire me. Ok, technically she can, but I don’t think she will. Or will she?”

He knows that, were he to leave the school and orphanage, the place would be I good hands, and that it could thrive without him. But he doesn’t want to. Over the past decade, it had become his home, his child, his everything. He couldn’t imagine being forced to leave it all behind him. Surely Padma wouldn’t do that to him. She still needs him, right? But maybe he should be easier on her. More attentive.

“I don’t think anyone there would enjoy parting with you,” Draco says before taking a sip.

Something in his stare makes Harry lower his head in his glass.

“Enough about me,” he laughs awkwardly. “How did _you_ end up working at the ministry’s secrecy and security department?”

He knows the generic story, of course, like anyone else – he supposes –, but hearing it from Draco himself is different. How he ended Hogwarts with top grades, how he had to start at the bottom of the ladder anyway, how it probably took him longer than anyone else, and how his hard work and precise spellcasting eventually paid off, leading him to a more than decent position.

“Is this your dream job?” Harry asks.

Draco arches both of his eyebrow in a mocking way. “I don’t think this is anyone’s dream job. The paperwork takes most of our time, to be honest with you. But field work is enjoyable.”

“So, what would it be? Your dream job, I mean?”

Draco seems taken aback by the question. “I… I don’t know,” he stutters. “I’m just glad I have a respectable job.”

Harry leans forward, hands wrapped around his glass. “I’m not asking if you like what you do. I’m talking about dreams. Is there something you’d like to do? It doesn’t even have to be a job,” he waves. “It could be, I don’t know, travelling, or getting a dog, or whatever. If you could do anything in the world, what would it be?”

Draco thinks about it, then smirks. “Is time travel a valid answer?”

Harry laughs. “It can be, I guess. I think I could choose that too.”

“And you,” Draco asks. “Are you living your dream life?”

Harry feels something tugging at his heart, but his answer is still as truthful as it can be.

“Honestly? I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.”

And without him knowing how, they’re on their fourth butterbeer and back at talking about the orphanage.

“I’ll be honest with you,” Draco says. “After last time, I went digging through all of the ministry’s reports and files about the place.”

“What?” Harry jokes. “Looking for a way to tear us apart?”

Draco shakes his head. “No. I just wanted to understand how the place works.”

“And? It’s all very legal, I swear. You can ask Padma, if you don’t trust me.”

“I trust you,” says Draco, waving away this remark. “I just have a question.”

“Shoot.”

“Where does your money comes from? You employ a lot of people, without counting all of the investments, like the new building, and ministry funding is minimal, to say the least. So, how do you finance everything?”

Harry shrugs. “We have a lot of generous private donors. I told you, we’ve received a lot of overwhelming support, form the start, and that’s what has helped us expand. People caring about what we do has helped us do better at what we care about, you know?”

“That’s great for you, but you know you could ask for more funding, right? You would get it.”

“We have what we need. I don’t see the point in asking for more when we function perfectly fine as it is. I don’t see the point in taking money from some other place just for some greedy reason. And Padma probably agrees, or she would have done it before.” He smiles, then adds, seeing the frown on Draco’s face. “We’re fine, really. Thanks for the advice, though. If we ever need it, I’ll know we can ask.”

“Is it because you _don’t want_ ministry funding?” Draco asks, as if he hasn’t heard the last part.

Harry must flinch, or physically react in some way, because Dram immediately asks:

“You still don’t trust the ministry, do you?”

Harry looks away, gripping his butterbeer. He would rather _not_ answer that question, especially when it’s a ministry employee asking. To his surprise, Draco laughs.

“For someone who seems so eager to let go of the past, you don’t seem very good at forgiving.”

“I forgave,” Harry says with determination, turning back to him. “I did not forget.”

Draco shakes his head, still slightly smiling. Harry feels like he’s being mocked, so he goes on.

“The ministry is an entity that only acts for its own benefits. Right now, the school and I make them look good, but what if it changes tomorrow? What if there’s a different minister, or more Umbridges working there? I can’t put the survival of the school and orphanage on the shoulders of such a fleeting organism.”

“But, what if your _generous private donors_ stop donating?”

Harry shakes his head. “There will always be good, caring, generous people. I trust people. But the political power of the entire magical world relies on one single institution. Why couldn’t we, like the muggles, have different ministries instead of just departments ? That way, if one of them were to fail, we could still rely on the others. As it is right now, if the ministry shifts, or falls, everything within our one political and juridical organ shifts, or falls. I’m sorry, but I can’t trust that.”

In a habit, he touches the scars on his hand, faded, after all these years, but still present.

“Is it Granger who put these ideas in your head, or did you put them in hers?” Draco is still smiling as he takes a sip.

“I don’t need Hermione to think, thank you very much,” Harry snaps.

“I didn’t mean it that way,” Draco says, putting down his glass. “It’s just, I’ve heard that same speech in her mouth about fifteen million times.”

Harry feels bad for being so rude. He had forgotten that Hermione and Draco actually work together from time to time, and are due to occasionally stumble into each other at the ministry. And, Hermione being Hermione, the whole ministry has probably heard her views on the subject by now. “We happen to share some opinions, sometimes.”

“Well, you are friends, after all.”

Or maybe, did Draco think that Harry’s distrust with the ministry is related to him, and people like him, working there? Because that’s not the case. Harry is all for redemption. He temperates his speech. “It’s not that I don’t trust the ministry right now. Because I do. If I was certain it would stay as it is, I would have no problem with it. But the thing is, we never know. I don’t want the ministry to control us in any way, financially or other. The school and orphanage must remain a free, independent institution. I am happy to respect regulations, and grateful for support, in a give-give relationship, but raising kids shouldn’t be submitted to the whims of the current minister. It should be a right and a duty, now and forever, no matter who holds power.”

“After all, you never were really good at respecting authority, were you.”

Harry doesn’t really want to dive back into the topic of their Hogwarts years, that they’ve successfully escaped. He yearns for lighter subjects of conversation, so he smiles.

“Don’t tell the kids anything about that, we don’t want them becoming like me.”

Draco stares at him for a couple of seconds, then snorts. “I won’t say a thing, I promise.”

“Thanks,” Harry says as he rises his glass before taking a sip.

They still chat lightly as they finish their drink, and Draco eventually looks at his watch – shiny, unshattered, expensive probably – and declares he should be heading back.

Harry goes to the counter to pay the bill, and meets him outside the door.

“Sorry for keeping you so late. You apparate straight back in London?”

Draco nods. In the cold of the evening, Harry plunges his hands into his jeans’ pockets.

“Good. Will you need to come back or is your inspection finished?”

“It’s almost done, but I’ll have to come back.”

“Okay. See you around, then?”

“See you around,” Draco nods as he briefly shakes the hand Harry is extending.

He then takes a step back a disappears into thin air in a crack, still staring at him. Harry shivers and starts walking the other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to profusedly thank Taylor Swift's "Evermore" and "Folklore" and Maren Morris' "Girl" for prividing basically all of the soundtrack used for writing this. No idea what it was in country pop that helped me writing but hey, whatever works.  
> Also, as English isn't my first language, i would like to apologize for any mistake i make : i just don't always know the proper grammar, so pardon my litteral French.  
> Also : of course Harry had to have a White Stripes t-shirt.
> 
> (Damn these first two chapters are very long, the next ones are much shorter)


	3. Chapter 3

Draco resolutely walks the hall toward Padma’s office, trying to convince himself he’s not looking for Potter when he’s glancing around him through open doors. He doesn’t know whether he’s relieved or not when he reaches the headmistress’ office without seeing him.

The other night with him, at the pub, left a strange taste in his mouth. Having drinks with Potter was an entirely wild thing on its own, but having a conversation with him that lasted more than one hour? Seeing where he lives? Hearing him talk about the past – about the present? That was more than he expected – more than he could handle, maybe.

He doesn’t really know what to do with this new, improved Potter, who doesn’t only look for his companionship, but also seems to enjoy it. Who is more temperate, but also as set as ever in his ideas. Who doesn’t jump into a fight every chance he has to. Who apologizes. Who has kids drawings on his walls.

“Draco! Do come in, please.”

“Good morning, Padma. Sorry, I am a little early.”

“No need to apologize. Please, sit. So, what do you need to do today?”

Draco sits and they go through paperwork and administrative details, even if his mind is circling back to the same thing. He knows he shouldn’t ask but, at the ends, it burns his tongue so much he does anyway.

“Padma, I know it’s none of my business, professional or otherwise but, as I was going through the ministry’s files on this place, I couldn’t help but notice you only receive minimal pubic funding. Now, I know Potter said that you wish to remain independent, and that you have a lot of generous private donors, but you know you could ask for more, right? I could direct you to the correct forms, if you wish. You would get it, with all the amazing work you do here.”

He knows he’s overstepped when Padma crosses her arms and leans back on her chair.

“For fuck’s sake,” she sighs.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to…”

“Harry told you that?”

“Yes. Maybe I shouldn’t…”

“It’s partly true, obviously. The independence thing is something he’s quite set on, and that the administrative board agreed on. We all saw what Hogwarts became in time of crisis, when Dumbledore was gone, and we don’t want that to happen to this school and orphanage should Harry, or any of its protector, disappear. But did he really say _a lot of private donors_?”

Draco shifts uncomfortable on his chair, both at the mention of Dumbledore and at Padma’s stern tone. “Yes. A lot of generous private donors, were his words, as I recall.”

“He’s such a…” she hisses, before shaking her head and leaning forward, staring at him. “Okay, what I’m going to say is off the record, and it doesn’t leave this room. I do not tell you that for the ministry’s benefits, just to warn you to take everything Harry says about the workings of this place with a pinch of salt.”

Draco starts to expect the worst. Was Harry making this place more wonderful than it actually is? Is I actually on the verge of falling apart?

“I love him, and he’s great,” Padma continues, “but he has a tendency to make light of everything and divert any question he doesn’t want to give a direct answer too. He’s also quite good at it – it’s part of his job, I guess.” She stares a bit more, and Draco tries to hold an impassible face. “Did he tell you who the private donors were?”

Draco shakes his head. Is this about a confidentiality breach? “No. He didn’t name names.”

“Of course he didn’t,” she sighs. “Sure, we have a nice amount of people who will give a hundred of galleons here or there, sometimes more, sometimes less, and that’s always very appreciated. But most of it – about ninety percent, I guess? It’s from Harry.”

She’s still looking at him, and Draco knows he has to unfreeze and say something. “You mean… his fundraising?”

“I mean his own fucking money. He doesn’t want anyone to know, because of some fucking Gryffindor’s pride shit or something, but this place runs on Harry’s personal funds.”

Draco is too stunned to say anything else than: “He must be really rich.”

“He never wanted to give me a estimate of his own fortune, and promised, under duress, to warn me if it ever was close to running out, but yes, he is fucking loaded.”

“But…” Draco starts regaining control of his brain. Is Potter really emptying all of his vault into this orphanage? Is he that rich? Does he have any idea on how to manage money? “But what happens if – Merlin forbids – he dies, or doesn’t want to give his money to this place anymore?”

Padma shakes her head. “I don’t think he will ever not care about the place. He built it from his own hands. It’s his baby, more than all of the kids that we have here. He is passionate about it, I will not take that from him, and wants the best for it. I believe that. He also assured me, with proof, that, were he to die, his will states the orphanage would get most of his possessions. And we know we have other funding options to explore, like the ministry, or even a partnership with Hogwarts.” She smiles. “I don’t want it to happen, but we would find a way. We have competent people working here.”

“Excluding Harry, apparently,” Draco mutters.

Padma points at him. “No. Do not say that. Harry is very competent, even if he pretends to not understand a thing about administration, for the same fucking dumb reason that he doesn’t want people to know he’s singlehandedly financing this place, probably. Which is why, even if I think it’s a stupid thing for him to put all of his money into this place, I do trust him when he says he can. He’s a grown man, it’s his own money, if that’s what he wants to do with it, who am I to stop him?” She sighs again. “Okay, I’ve tried stopping him, but he’s as stubborn as a hippogriff, so I stopped trying.”

Draco feels incredibly more angry than he should be at this idea – and also a bit ashamed for saying (and thinking) Potter was acting inconsiderately. As Padma just said, Potter is a grown man. What he chooses to do with his own money shouldn’t trouble Draco that much. “But doesn’t he need it for himself? Is this why he dresses like a beggar?”

Padma smiles. “Harry dresses like a beggar because he’s around kids all day and also because he has no sense of style. This has nothing to do with money. Listen: I agree with you, we could do with a bit more ministry money, without risking the independence we’re so set upon keeping. I tried convincing Harry, without success, but if you want, you’re free to try. You’re his friend, now, right? Maybe he will listen to you.”

Potter? Listen to him? That would be a first. No, Draco will not talk to him about any of that. It’s his own problem and, as Padma confirmed, she shouldn’t even have told him about it. He will not meddle in Potter’s business.

***

“Hey, Draco!” Harry waves as he spots him in the hall through the dining hall’s open door.

Draco turns, nods and stop to wait for him.

Harry had hoped to catch him earlier this morning, before his appointment with Padma, to set their story straight about the other night before he met with her, but he was called to the dorms for an urgent matter with a kid and the door to the office was already closed by the time he got down.

“How are you doing? Was the meeting alright?” What did they discuss? Did Draco complain about how Harry dragged him out last time?

“Yes, we discussed what we needed,” Draco answers stiffly.

Oh shit. What went wrong?

“Do you want to come in for lunch?” Harry asks. “It’s veggie lasagna today.”

“No, I have to get back to London. Thanks.”

“Oh, okay.” Harry feels both disappointed and relieved. He’s trying to review what he could have done wrong, and also to find a way to keep Draco here so he could try to extract the answer from him. Even if, at the same time, he doesn’t really want to stand under his wrath. “Hey, are you free on Saturday?” He asks, almost as a pretext. “I’m taking the kids to the Harpies’ game, and we always have spare tickets. Do you want to come?”

Draco seems unmoved by this question, but he briefly frowns. “I don’t know. I…” He sighs, almost as if defeated.

“Sorry,” Harry says to shorten his awkwardness. “I shouldn’t keep you here when you have work to do. I’ll owl you the details if you want, and you can let me know then if you can make it.”

“Alright,” Draco concedes.

“Great. See you Saturday, maybe, then?”

Draco nods with a frown before turning and leaving. Harry’s eyes follow him to the glass door, until, on the other side, he disappears with a faint _crack_.

***

Draco doesn’t know what to do with Potter’s owl. It contains a barely legible manuscript note with the time and place of the game, and even a smiley face at the end of the sentence “see you there, I hope!” Does he want to go? Yes. Should he go? Probably not. He will either explode at Potter for not telling him the truth about the orphanage, or one look at his smile will suffice to have all of his anger collapse. He doesn’t want either of these scenarios to happen.

He just wants to understand Potter.

He feels like that’s something he’s tried to do all of his life, and always failed at.

One of the reasons – the main reason – he accepted this assignment was because he wanted to figure out why, out of all of the choices that were offered to him, this is what Potter chose to do with his life. After the war, he could have been anyone, done anything he wanted, asked for anything; it would have been given to him. But no, instead of being the hero everyone wanted, he didn’t even come back to Hogwarts, he buried himself Merlin knew where and only reemerged to open his orphanage.

And now, Draco found out that not only does Harry dedicate all of his time and energy to the place, but also all of his money? And, even if there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, Draco can’t help but be bothered by all of it. Maybe it’s all that Potter didn’t tell him, maybe it’s all of his avoiding personal questions, maybe it’s the disarming honesty with which he answers some other questions, maybe it’s the kids drawings in his room, but he has the nagging feeling that Potter is hiding a lot of himself – not only from him, but from everyone else.

He is resolute to push these thoughts to the back of his mind until he gets home tonight and has to answer the invitation, when he steps out of the elevator at the ministry and runs into none other than Granger.

“Morning, Draco,” she smiles at him.

“Good morning, Hermione.” She told him to stop calling her Granger years ago, but the habit hasn’t caught yet. As their office are in the same direction, he has no choice but to walk with her.

“How are you doing? Still working on Harry’s case?”

He raises his eyebrows, and she laughs.

“Sorry, he told me about it. I’m not spying on your work.”

“Yes, I just have to finish my report. He will probably see it, but you can tell him it sheds quite a positive light on the place.” He agreements his sentence with a small smile, and she snorts.

“I’ll let him know. He told me you two were becoming quite good friends? You’re going to a quidditch match together this weekend, right?”

Does Potter tell Granger _everything_?

“Yes, he said he had extra tickets,” Draco says, even if he hasn’t quite taken his decision yet about it – _liar_.

“Yes, he always has extra tickets. Be warned, though, you will be expected to babysit the kids with him. That’s why Ron says he doesn’t want to accept his invitations anymore – he pretends he can’t follow the game. He still goes when he can, though.”

A dreadful feeling falls into Draco’s stomach. He’s not sure he can handle a full match with Weasley’s presence – nothing against the guy, though, it’s just that they’ve never been and will never be the best of mates. “Is he coming on Saturday?”

“No, he has to work.”

Relief floods over him. “That’s too bad,” he says anyway.

“But it’s good you’re going. It will give Harry some grown-ups company. He can use that,” she laughs.

“He does seem to spend an awful lot of time around children.”

“Yes. He’s great with them. It’s just…” she hesitates a bit. “Sometimes, it feels like he doesn’t really know how to fit in the adult world, you know what I mean?”

Draco nods. He knows exactly.

“Anyway, this is my office, it was nice seeing you! Send Harry my best if you see him before me.”

“Can I come in?” Draco asks before second-guessing himself.

She looks surprised, but holds the door open for him nevertheless. “Sure.”

As soon as they’re alone, he asks, before getting cold feet: “Is it true that Potter basically singlehandedly finances his whole orphanage and school?”

She pauses as she puts down her bag on her desk. “Harry told you that?” she asks seriously.

He shakes his head. “Padma. I brought up the subject of ministry funding with her, and she spilled the beans, I guess. Harry only told me about ‘generous private donors’.”

Hermione laughs sadly as she shakes her head and sits down. “Of course, that’s what he would say. And yes, it’s true. Don’t go around saying it, though.” She gesture to a seat on the other side of her desk, and he sits too. “He doesn’t want people to know.”

“Why? It isn’t a bad thing.”

“He doesn’t want the orphanage to be about him.”

“But how rich is he?”

“Very. Trust me, I’ve seen the accounts, he can afford it. He has his own parents’ inheritances, plus Sirius’ money – and you probably know a thing yourself about the Black’s fortune.”

Draco nods. Old wizard families certainly have means.

“He says he doesn’t need it for himself,” Granger continues, “and that he would rather put it to some good use. Besides, Harry has always been generous with what he has. It’s no surprise he would do it, really.”

“Very Gryffindor of him,” Draco says coldly.

Hermione laughs briefly. “Yes, I guess. But, mostly, very Harry. Apart from broomsticks and a few personal trinkets, he has never been really interested in material possessions. He has a huge house he barely ever uses and mostly serves as a hotel for visiting friends in need, he gives away his old broomsticks to friends or Hogwarts students, and he even offered to give Ron and I his own house when we were looking for a place to live – we refused, obviously, it was enough he paid for the wedding—”

“Potter paid for your wedding?”

She winces. “Well, not all of it, but yeah, he did substantially help. We felt a bit guilty accepting, at first, but we actually needed the help at the time. Besides, now we’ve realised it’s just how he is. He helped Neville set up his greenhouses, he finances most of Luna’s travels when she can’t find another way, he invested in Dean and Seamus’ pub when they started, and even once bought a whole lot of top-notch broomsticks for Ginny’s team, when the club was doing poorly. You know, at the time, he even gave George – and Fred – the money to start their shop.”

Draco doesn’t really know what to answer to that. Hermione continues.

“Look, I wouldn’t worry too much if I were you. Harry doesn’t feel pressured to give his money to the orphanage, and he can afford it, so the place is in no trouble financially. There are worse ways to spend the Black inheritance – well, not according to the Black ancestors who must turn around in their graves, probably, but you know what I mean.”

Draco smiles. His great-great-grandmother would probably hate Harry with all of her being.

“Was there anything else you wanted to discuss?” Hermione asks. “I’m not kicking you out, but I have a heavy day ahead of me.”

Draco gets up and shakes his head. “No, that was all. Thank you, I won’t take up more of your time.”

She smiles as he opens the door. “See you around, Draco.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Hey, you made it!” Harry waves.

His other hand is taken by the sticky fingers of Matty, who is both the tiniest and filthiest kid he’s ever seen.

Draco crosses the crowd toward them and is stopped in his progression when Nina steps right in between him and Harry.

“Harry, your nemesis is there!”

“Hi, Draco.”

“Are you allowed to say hi to your nemesis?” Debbie asks with a frown.

“Yes, that is how you great them.”

Debbie seems to think about it for a couple of seconds, then turns to Draco.

“Hi, nemesis.”

“You can call him Draco.”

“No, I’d rather call him nemesis.”

“You can call me nemesis,” Draco says. “And how can I call you?”

“Debbie’s fine,” she says before darting away, calling at Nina.

“Sorry about that,” Harry winces. “But it was sweet of you to let her call you that. You don’t have to, though. Technically, you’re not even _her_ nemesis. And you don’t want to be, trust me.”

Draco smiles. “It’s alright. Nemesis is a nice word.”

Harry laughs. He was a bit afraid Draco wouldn’t come, considering how long he took to answer his owl, but seeing him here is a relief. It means Harry didn’t mess up everything.

Surprisingly, he is finding out that he actually enjoys Draco’s company. He has grown off his hatred a long time ago, but he never thought the two of them could actually become friends. And yet, he comes to enjoy the time spent with him more and more. He is smart, funny sometimes, unpredictable and yet familiar. And, in a way, hanging out with him is a bit like hanging out with kids, though for opposite reasons: when being with kids feels freeing because they have no idea who he is, being with Draco feels freeing because he knows exactly who Harry is. It is, in a sense, refreshing.

“Is everyone here? Come on, let’s go before this lot gets stampeded by the crowd,” says Amantha. “Okay, kids, grab your game buddy and don’t let go, we’re going in.”

Harry turns to the kid still hanging to his arm. “Who’s your game buddy, Matty?”

“It’s Adam,” Matty says, “but he says he doesn’t want to be my game buddy because then I try to hug him but he doesn’t like being hugged and then he’s mean at me and then I cry and then he cries too because he doesn’t like it when I cry and then Amantha says she can’t even enjoy the game in peace.”

“Okay. Alright. How about, today, I’m your game buddy? And Adam can be Amantha’s game buddy? And we’ll figure something out for next time?”

Amantha’s eyes are throwing daggers at him, so he whispers to her, as they walk into the stadium: “Hey, don’t be mad, I left you with the quiet one.”

She huffs and then walks ahead, a thin kid at her hand.

Harry turns toward Draco. “Sorry, these games with the kids are always a bit of a mess. If you see one running away, could you try to stop them? Or at least yell at me, so that I can.”

“I will try.”

Harry spends the next few minutes herding his bunch of kids to their seats, and manages to stop Nina from falling over the railing as she looks at the field – twice. He finally settles in between Matty, who won’t let go of his hand, and Draco.

“These are good seats,” Draco comments.

“Yes, Ginny is always very generous. Okay, kids,” Harry adds in a loud voice. “Remember the rules: no running, no swearing, no leaving your seat without the company of one of us adults, and, what’s the last one?”

“Have fun!” the kids answer all in one voice.

Harry smiles as the whistle blows.

In less than five minutes, he’s already entranced in the game. Quidditch has always had a special way of making his heart beat, whether he is playing it or watching it. He likes the freedom of the players, the thrill of the tactics, the adrenaline of the score. And of course, the almost calm and detached mood, but at the same time staying on the edge, it takes to find the snitch.

It also is one of the rare times where he actually enjoys being in a crowd. Sure, there a always a few people who recognize him, but that’s just part of his life now, he’s learnt to deal with it. But he loves the energy of the audience, the screams of joy, the chants, the cheers ; it truly uplifts him and his spirit in a way not many other things can. Here, he feels like he’s a part of something whole – just as much as any audience member. He’s yelling with everyone else, groaning with everyone else, feeling with everyone else. There, he can just forget about who he is.

The enthusiasm of the kids around him helps. They may not understand the subtleties of the game, but they sure are wild supporters.

“That was a foul! The referee is a dick!”

“Nina! What did we say about swearing?”

“Dick is not a swear word!”

“In this circumstance, it is! Amantha, tell her.”

“No, in this case, it’s a fact.”

Harry is stopped from arguing by a magnificent goal by the Harpies, causing the whole stadium, himself included, to erupt in a cheer.

He turns to Draco.

“Brilliant, isn’t it?”

Draco nods. “Yes. It’s been a while since I’ve been to a game.”

“You should come more often,” he says without thinking.

Draco raises his eyebrows, then smiles. “You need more adult supervision for this bunch?”

“What? No! I mean, if you like quidditch, you should come. We always have spare tickets. You still like quidditch, right?”

“Yet, Potter, I still like quidditch.”

Harry, smiles, relieved. “Good. Then you should come.”

Draco is about to answer when the crowd cheers again.

“What happened?” Harry asks, turning to the other side.

“Well, first, Demelza had the quaffle,” Matty answers, “but she was hit by a bludger, like, on her arm, so she dropped it, but then it was caught by…”

“The Harpies scored again,” Dan interrupts him.

“Amazing. Thanks, guys. Go Harpies!”

He becomes enthralled in the game again, and stands up without noticing it. Ginny has always been great on a broom, but she hasn’t stopped improving since she joined the team. Her flight is precise and agile, and her coordination makes it seem almost like a dance. He truly is fascinated by her, her fierceness and her playfulness. When he watches her playing, he can understand why he fell in love with her once.

He can also understand why it didn’t work out between them.

Still, she’s brilliant on the field. Better than he ever was, probably.

“Look, Harry, she’s diving!” Matty says as he points at her.

“Oh fuck, she’s seen it! Draco, she’s seen the snitch!” Without thinking, he grabs his arm.

He can see it too, now, the tiny golden sparkling point, and so does the other seeker. But Ginny flies like lightning, and a few seconds later she emerges, hand in the hair and triumphant smile on the lips.

“She fucking did it!” Harry yells, arms in the air, before turning to Draco and embracing him in a tight hug. “She caught it! Man, did you see that dive?”

Draco seems stunned as Harry retreats, beaming, still holding his shoulder.

“We won, Harry, we won!” Matty yells, on the other side of him.

“Harpies are better than you, you bastards!” Nina yells.

“Nina, watch that tongue of yours!” Harry doesn’t try very hard to stop her, though, too excited himself by what just happened.

When he turns to Draco, he catches a smile on his lips, and smiles back as their eyes meet.

***

Leaving the stadium is even more of a nightmare than entering it. Everyone is so much more excited, including the kids, who apparently cannot stay in row.

“Harry, can we go say hi to Ginny?” asks the foul-mouthed Nina.

“Not today, the game was longer than expected and we have to catch our portkey. Come on, guys, no lingering. Matty, you stay with me.”

Despite being in over his head with the children, Potter is positively glowing from the inside. Even if he has always enjoyed the sport, Draco feels like he will never adore it as much as Potter does. There has always been true passion in his playing of quidditch – on top of actual talent –, and that is something Draco has always admired and envied. Even today, it still draws him toward Potter.

“Draco, do you want to come?” Potter asks. “We’ve got to take the kids back to the school first, but we can go for a drink after, if you want?”

“Alright”, Draco answers without even thinking.

The return through portkeys is a chaotic game of herding cats, but they eventually all make it back to the school’s grounds in one piece.

“You go have your drink with your friend, Harry, we’ll handle the kids,” Amantha says.

“Are you sure? I can help.”

“You are never of any help after a quidditch game,” Katie laughs. “Just, go. Stop exciting them.”

“Thanks, then! You can join us later if you want.”

“No,” says Amantha before turning back.

Katie shrugs.

Draco hopes they won’t come.

The children’s cries slowly disappear between them as they walk to the Three Broomsticks, but Potter himself can’t seem to be able to shut up about the game. Granted, it was a good game, a really good one, and Draco doesn’t mind hearing him talk at all. But, further away from the crowd, the noise and the excitement, Draco is slowly touching back down with reality.

“Ginny was brilliant, wasn’t she?” Potter says as he pushes the door to the pub. “She’s so amazing on a field. That dive was so on point.”

“Are you still in love with her?” Draco asks without thinking.

“What?” Harry pauses, then laughs. “No, of course not.” He laughs again, as if the idea in itself was so preposterous it became funny. “No, Ginny and I haven’t been in love with each other since the war. We’re just really good friends, now. And, regardless of all that, she’s a brilliant seeker.”

“She is,” Draco concedes as he walks into the pub.

The room is fuller than the last time they were there, and Draco can hear laughs and recollections of today’s game already. Potter walks straight toward the same table they were last time, which appears to be empty. Is it luck, or is it Potter’s own table? He waves at some people sitting here and there, even stopping a couple of times to exchange a few words about the match.

They’ve barely been sitting for a few seconds when Rosmerta appears at their side, two butterbeers in hand.

“So I heard the game was good.”

“It was brilliant!” Potter exclaims as he takes one of the glasses. “I won’t bore you with the details, I know you don’t care, but know that Ginny did a stunning catch of the snitch.”

“Yes, I heard that one already,” she laughs. “Can I get you guys anything else?”

“Fries for me. Draco, fries?”

Draco nods.

“Oh, and firewhiskies, to celebrate. Draco, do you want one too, or will you stick to butterbeers?”

Getting inebriated in front of Potter may not be a good idea, but Draco says anyway: “Yes, a firewhisky for me too, thank you.”

“Coming right up.”

“To the Harpies,” Potter says once she’s gone, raising his glass.

“To the Harpies,” Draco says back.

“So, how come you don’t go to games often?” Potter asks after taking a huge gulp.

Draco shrugs. “I don’t think about it, I guess. I do enjoy it, but I don’t look for it, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I do. You just seize opportunities when they come, right?”

Draco smiles. “Yes, you can say that, I guess.”

They keep talking about the game – mostly Potter, but Draco joins in once the firewhisky starts kicking in – while the fries and the drinks come and go. Draco is surprised at how easy talking to him actually is, considering they spent most of their youth hating each other. Maybe it’s the firewhisky helping, but here, in this noisy pub, eating fries with his hands and facing Harry Potter, Draco is actually feeling more relaxed than he did in a long time – than he ever did, maybe. Strangely, for once, he doesn’t feel self-conscious at all. Maybe it’s because Potter himself seems to have no knowledge of the word or its meaning, with his tee-shirt that has holes on the collar and is probably two sizes too big, his hair that is getting all over the way for all the times he puts his hand in it, or his unashamed laughs.

Usually, Draco is always very aware of the looks he attracts, of people whispering around him, or those who do a detour to avoid him. He knows it bothers whoever he may be talking to and make things awkward, but Potter doesn’t seem to care at all. In fact, he seems to be oblivious to all of their surroundings, to everything that isn’t Draco. Even the glass in his hand looks like just a prop. Being the centre of his attention, the direction of his wild smiles and the glimmer in his eyes, is very unsettling, but not in a bad way. It’s probably the alcohol, but Draco feels a warmth setting through him, and he even feels so bold as to enjoy the moment. The conversation is fun, the firewhisky tastes nice, and the company, is… well, he would rather not have to put words on it.

When Rosmerta comes in with a new round of firewhisky, Potter raises his hand. “That will be the last one for me, thanks. I still want to be able to walk back home.”

“Yes, same for me, thanks,” Draco adds.

He feels like he’s been here for hours and, at the same time, that it’s only been a few minutes. But he sure knows he should stop drinking before he does something he will very much regret later.

She leaves with a smile and a nod and Potter looks at his old battered watch while putting his other hand in his hair. “Fuck, have we really been talking about the game for almost three hours?”

“To be fair,” Draco says, taking his glass with a smile, “We didn’t only talk about the game.”

“You’re right,” Potter says as he raises his firewhisky. “ _I_ talked about the game. You were a far more sophisticated person with a broader conversation range.”

“You think I’m sophisticated?” Draco teases.

“Well, you are. Look at you,” Potter gestures his hand wildly, “With your perfect hair and your perfect eyebrows and your shirt that is made of, like, silk.” He leans over the table and touches the fabric over the elbow, where Draco pushed the sleeves up his arms earlier, revealing the dark mark – which didn’t seem to bother Potter in the least.

Draco laughs when Potter’s fingers brush his skin. “That is not silk. Do you even know what silk is?”

“I don’t know, it just looks fancy, that’s all. And look at how you hold your glass! I look like a regular drunkard next to you.”

Draco wants to tell him he looks glorious, but instead he says: “And I look like a sophisticated drunkard, I guess?”

Potter laughs. “You’re way more funny than I thought you’d be, you know?”

Draco arches an eyebrow. “Is that supposed to be a compliment?”

“Yes! No! I don’t know.” Potter groans as he collapses on his arm on the table, before rising back up. “I mean, we’ve never had the chance to properly chat until now, I guess, and you always look so serious and focused, I always feel like you’re gonna say something super smart or stern and instead you say something funny, and that’s, like, surprising. But in a good way.”

His smile is so tender that Draco has to briefly look away.

“What I’m saying is, I like being your friend, I guess.”

“So we are friends?” Draco asks, way more softly than he would have liked.

“Yeah,” Potter answers. “I guess? If you want to?”

He seems a lot more insecure than he has been all evening – all day –, and that’s what makes Draco melt.

“Yes,” he breathes. “I guess we are.”

Harry’s smile lights up the whole room.

“Though you’re about twenty years late, Potter, I want it remembered that I asked you that before,” he says to break the moment.

It doesn’t really work, as Potter explodes into laughter and the way he’s late to put his hand in front of his mouth, the way he blinks, the way he almost splashes his drink, is worse than what Draco was trying to avoid.

“See, I told you! You’re funny!”

“I always knew that, Potter. You were the one who were always blinded by my good looks.”

“I guess I was, yes.” There’s something in his eyes Draco doesn’t want to explore.

Potter stares at him a bit, a half smile on his lips, then finishes his drink in one gulp. “Should we go?”

Draco wonders a bit what he may have done or said wrong, for Potter to suddenly want this evening to end. Was it not going as well as he thought? What has Potter decided, during these few seconds he was looking at him? His throat suddenly dry, he empties his own glass. “Yes. Let’s go.”

Potter gets up, still smiling at him, and waves at Rosmerta, who is buried in orders. She nods at him with a smile, shooing him away.

“Did she just let us leave without paying?” Draco asks, just to say something.

“Yeah, I’ll pay her next time, don’t worry. We always do that when the night is busy. She knows where I live, anyway,” Potter answers while sliding into the crowd.

Draco follows him, suddenly close to suffocating.

The hit of fresh air is the most welcome once they step out, but only for a couple of seconds, because after he’s shivering. The May nights are still pretty cold, despite the sun never quite setting down behind the horizon. That’s the thing that was always the hardest for him to get used to, in Scotland. In summer, the nights aren’t quite real, and in winter, they are far too real.

Potter stretches his neck and spins, appreciating the coolness as well before turning toward him. “So, you’re apparating straight back to London?”

“That’s the plan, yes,” Draco answers coolly while putting down his shirt sleeves. He doesn’t even want to look at Potter, afraid of what he’ll find.

“You could stay here, you know. With all the firewhisky we had, maybe it’s not _that_ prudent to travel. Who knows what you would leave behind?”

Draco knows perfectly well what he would be leaving behind.

“You mean, take a room at the three broomsticks?”

“Yeah, you could do that. Or…”

The way he leaves the word trailing forces Draco to look up. The wind in Potter’s hair doesn’t help. At all.

“Or we have spare rooms at the orphanage,” Potter adds. “Plenty. You could take one for the night, no one would mind. People do it all the time.”

Draco arches an eyebrow. “People?”

“Friends. You know.” Potter shrugs, then take a step to him. “Or…”

He looks down, and Draco feels his warm fingers on his cool wrist, just under his faded mark, and he clenches his fist while inhaling sharply.

“Or,” Potter whispers, looking up at him, barely inches from his face, “There’s spare room at my place. In my bed,” he clarifies.

Draco’s throat is all dried up, and he clears it before asking, frozen: “Are you serious?”

Potter laughs shyly and starts retreating. “I mean, if you don’t want me to be, we can all pretend tomorrow that this was just some regular drunkard bullshit talk.”

His fingers are about to slip away from Draco’s skin when he finds the strength to catch them with his other hand and assert: “No.”

Potter stops and stares at him. “No?”

Draco takes a step toward him, close enough to breath in his air. “No,” he growls.

Potter huffs a laugh, and his fingers glide down Draco’s arm, until they can intertwine with his. “Come on, then.” He starts dragging him toward the school, half-stumbling, half running. Draco can only follow him mechanically.

Potter doesn’t let go of his hand all the way to his room, trying to keep quiet in the corridors, but apparently he can’t stop himself from giggling and turning to Draco, missing some stairs in the process. Draco isn’t surprised that Potter is a messy drunk, but at that point he just finds it endearing.

Its only when the bedroom door is closed behind them that Potter seems to sober up a little. He stares at Draco in the darkness, his chest puffing, until, slowly, he raises the hand that isn’t holding his to his cheek, softly running his thumb under Draco’s eye.

“Is this ok?” he whispers.

“Yes,” Draco breathes.

Then Potter’s lips are on his and all the remnants of his brain are fully gone.

***

“This wasn’t here before.”

Draco’s thumb caresses Harry’s collarbone.

“The boa?” Harry answers, his vision blurry. “Yeah, he likes to move around.”

He rolls over to the side of the bed and, blindly, feels around with his hand until he finds his glasses. He puts them on and turns back to Draco.

“I’ve never heard of a tattoo that can move around your body,” Draco says, putting his fingers back on it.

Harry intertwines his fingers with Draco’s. “Yeah, it’s not exactly standard, but Charlie had one and he knew this artist who could do it, and I loved it so I got one. It’s actually quite interesting, the woman was explaining to me that it was kinda the same technique used in painting? So the portraits can move and talk, you know. She actually was a painter, originally, but she loved tattoos, so when she tried doing some she wanted to put her painter experience to use and she developed this technique. Obviously mine can’t talk, since it’s a snake, but Charlie has a dragon that can actually spit fire. That’s pretty cool. She does some really impressive work.”

Draco’s fingers rub his skin, leaving a shiver in their wake. “I had never heard of that before. Do you move it with your mind, or does it move on its own?”

Harry shrugs. “A bit of both. I can put it somewhere if I want to, but if I don’t pay attention it just wanders around. Hang on.”

He focuses a bit, then feels the tattoo unroll itself and slither to his other collarbone, where it curls on itself again. Draco’s fingers follow it.

“Impressive, indeed.” He seems pensive for a few seconds, then asks: “But why a snake? I would have taken you for more of a roaring lion person.”

Harry sighs and smiles. That question is the reason why he likes to have this one tattoo hidden. “I don’t hate snakes, you know. This one actually based on a boa constrictor I met as a child and that probably was kinder to me than any other human being in my life at that time. The fact that it’s associated with Voldemort and dark magic in general doesn’t mean the animals in themselves are bad. This is sort of a reminder to stay open-minded.”

Draco smiles. “Can’t you talk to snakes, too?”

Harry rolls on his back. This wasn’t the conversation he planned to have at that moment. “Not anymore,” he simply says.

Draco must feel his reluctance, because he doesn’t press the subject. Instead, he comes snuggle closer to Harry and runs his hand over his chest and shoulder.

“You do have a lot of tattoos,” he comments. His tone isn’t judgemental, just curious.

Harry sighs again, then gets angry at himself for feeling so down at that moment, where he should be feeling anything but that.

He’s proud of his tattoos, he loves them, and they bring him comfort and happiness. But explaining them to people always takes a toll out of him, because most of them weren’t born out of happiness, and most people don’t understand why he needed to do that.

But, if anyone can, it’s probably Draco.

He turns to him and snuggles his nose into Draco’s neck, planting a kiss there. He feels Draco’s arms closing against his back. Eyes closed, he answers:

“I was tired of other people branding my body, so I decided to do it myself.” He feels Draco tense a little, and lightly bites his skin. “I put my parents there, and my friends, and everything that made me feel like me.” His hands go up Draco’s flanks, ending up over his shoulder blades. “I needed to ground myself in my own body.” He trails kisses all over Draco’s jaw, feeling his breath hitch under him, up to his mouth. He then raises up, straddling Draco, and stares straight into his eyes. “I’m surprised you don’t have any, to be honest with you.”

“I have one, and it’s plenty enough,” Draco laughs sadly, his hands resting on Harry’s lower back.

Harry catches Draco’s wrist with his hand and, despite Draco’s reluctance, he raises it up. “I know. And I don’t care, Draco.” Still holding Draco’s gaze, he kisses his faded mark. “I don’t care.” He kisses it again. “This isn’t who you are anymore. Just like this—” he takes Draco’s fingers to his own forehead, tracing the lightning bolt he knows all too well “— isn’t who I am anymore.” Draco frees his hand and takes off Harry’s glasses, making the world blurry for him again. Harry lowers downs, stopping only a breath away from Draco’s open mouth. “I won’t let us be defined by the marks someone else put on us,” he growls before kissing him furiously.

Dracos pulls him in against his body.

***

Draco is awake the next morning by a rustling sound next to him. He rolls onto his side, feeling the sunlight on his eyelids before opening them. He blinks a few times before discerning Harry’s silhouette as he’s closing his jeans’ buttons. He’s already wearing a red t-shirt that gives a glimpse of his tattoos under the sleeves.

Draco must have made some sound, as Harry turns to him and, pushing back his hair, smiles at him.

“Hey,” he says softly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you up. You can get back to sleep, I’ve got some things to do but I’ll come back up with breakfast.”

Without thinking, Draco holds out his arm and catches Harry’s hand. “Can’t you stay?” he mumbles, still half asleep. “It’s Sunday.”

Harry laughs. “Sorry, I’m on breakfast duties. This is a place with children and they will not accept the excuse of a handsome man in my bed if they’re denied food. But I’ll try my best to be quick.” Is eyes fall on their joined hands and he whispers “Oh shit.”

The snake, wrapped around his wrist since he fell asleep, slithers back up his arm until it disappears under his shirt. Draco’s eyes must be questioning, because Harry says:

“I don’t like people to see it. They make assumptions.” He then leans down and kisses Draco right under his jaw, before squeezing his hand as he raises back up. “I’ll be back soon. Don’t worry, I’ll lock the door so no one will bother you. Get back to sleep.”

A few seconds later, the door slams and Draco’s fingers feel cold and empty. He closes his eyes.

When he opens them again, Potter is setting a tray on the bed. It smells of coffee, toast and juice. Draco stretches.

“Sorry, did I wake you again?” Potter laughs. “I tried to be quiet.”

He takes off his shoes and sits cross legged on the bed, facing Draco, who starts raising up.

“Bathroom’s that way, if you need to,” Potter says, pointing a door with a toast already in his hand.

Draco nods as he rubs his eyes with his hand, then gets up on the other side of the bed. He looks around him, suddenly self-conscious about standing naked in front of Potter. Behind him, he hears the crunch of toast and Potter saying, his mouth half-full: “Here, I put your clothes over there this morning, if that’s what you’re looking for. Catch.”

He turns around to see him leaning – and almost falling – toward his desk chair, the bread in his mouth, before sending him a pack of clothes over the bed. Draco thanks him with a nod and digs up his underwear before putting it on as quick as he can. Putting on his buttoned-up shirt feels like too much work, so he just stands up awkwardly and walks to the bathroom without looking back at Potter.

When he comes back, Potter has finished his piece of toast and is now holding a steaming mug in both of his hands.

“There’s a t-shirt on the bed for you. It’s clean, I promise. Your outfit from yesterday isn’t exactly morning wear,” Potter smirks before taking a sip.

Draco looks down and sees a black shirt with “Bikini Kill” written on it in faded white. It does look clean, if crudely folded and rudely worded. He puts it on.

“I didn’t know if you preferred tea or coffee, so I brought both, and also both orange and grapefruit juice, and about every type of marmalade we have, so you can pick what you like.”

Draco stares at him over the collar of the shirt who smells like Potter, and Potter smiles at him.

“Not a morning person, huh? Sorry. Get back in the bed, you don’t have to talk. I don’t even have to talk, if you want some quiet.”

He does indeed shut up, even if he doesn’t stop looking at Draco over the ridge of his mug. Draco sighs and sits, cross-legged, on the other side of the tray.

“I’ll take a coffee,” he forces himself to say.

Potter puts down his mug and fills another one before handing it to Draco. “There’s cream and sugar over there, just help yourself with whatever you want.”

Draco’s fingers briefly touch Harry’s and he makes the pot of cream, emptying half of it into his mug. He feels Potter’s stare on him all along, but doesn’t look back at him.

This feels more intimate than sex, somehow. Drinking coffee in silence on a unmade bed, wearing someone else’s shirt, in a messy room that already seem so familiar to him, the sun shining on them, he feels more naked than he did last night in the dark.

He focuses on the coffee to stop his mind from going in full analytical mode. Now is not the time.

The coffee is alright. Not perfect, but perfectly acceptable. Good enough to wake him up and chase the last clouds from his brain. He finishes the first cup, then pours himself another one as Potter silently munches on another piece of almost burnt toast.

“So,” he finally asks, unsure of where they stand. “What’s the plan, now?”

Potter shrugs. “Well, I promised a redo of yesterday’s game this afternoon, so there’s that. You can come, if you want. If you’re not afraid of a dozen of kids asking you very random questions.”

Draco can picture the scene, but he shakes his head. “I have lunch with my mother on Sundays.”

“Oh, alright, then.” Potter looks toward the window. Is he disappointed? He turns back to Draco. “At what time do you have to be there? I mean… Do you still have an hour to spare, or…?”

The implications are all too clear in his smirk, and Draco buries his head in his mug. Why is he feeling embarrassed? He woke up naked in Potter’s bed, for fuck’s sake.

“But you don’t have to stay,” Potter adds. “Maybe you have things to do. You can apparate straight out of here, if you want. Do as you wish, really.”

Draco feels really stupid. There’s Potter, in front of him, who just brought him breakfast and asked him to spend another hour in bed with him, and what is he doing? Weighing his options? There are no options here, really. There’s only staying or eternal regrets. He raises his head. He can be late to his mother’s, for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the cool band shirts Harry owns are probably because Ginny dragged him to the shows.  
> Also, that tattoo artist's story would probably have been much more interesting than this one.


	5. Chapter 5

“You know where to find me,” Harry told Draco right before he left, on Sunday. He willingly left things open, unsure whether Draco would want to see him again, leaving him a way out in case he didn’t.

But now, it’s Friday, he hasn’t heard from him, and he’s starting to regret not making it clearer that he wanted to see him again. At least, he would have known where to stand.

Maybe he wasn’t casual enough? Maybe Draco just wanted meaningless sex, and instead Harry offered him breakfast and quidditch with kids? Of course Draco ran. He sobered up and realised that he didn’t want that trainwreck in his life, which is understandable. After all, Harry jumped on him after what, two dates? That weren’t even dates? Who does that? Some sort of regular drunkard, probably.

It’s okay. Harry can do casual. Next time they meet, he can act as if nothing happened, and let Draco see that he doesn’t expect anything from him. That will help, hopefully. He just needs to stop being so blatantly upfront about everything. He can do that, too, probably. Maybe, if this works, they can stay friends. Or, at least, friendly. He likes being friends – _friendly_ – with Draco. That would be nice to keep it that way.

And no one – _no one_ – needs to know that he slept all week in the shirt Draco wore on Sunday morning.

And, while he’s perfectly fine with being casual and not coming on too strong and keeping some distance, he doesn’t exactly expect Draco to find him kneeling in the vegetable patch, dirt to his elbows, and his hair tied back with a pink hair tie he borrowed from Gwen to keep it from constantly falling into his eyes.

“Amantha told me I’d find you there,” Draco simply says after his shadows fall on Harry.

“Hi.” Harry is too stunned to say anything else. He blinks because of the sun, then brings his soil-covered hand to his forehead to protect his eyes. Flecks of dirt stick to his glasses. “I didn’t know you were coming today,” he says as he gets up.

Merlin, there’s a line between _casual_ and _dumb_ , and he more than crossed it.

“I had things to see with Padma about my report.”

He sees Draco’s eyes going down on his body, and himself looks down at his knees. His jeans are good for a nice wash. He winces.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Anyway, how is your report going?”

“Good.”

“Good to hear. How’s your mother?”

“My…” Draco seems surprised, before catching himself up. “She’s fine. Thank you.”

“Good.”

He stands there, waiting for Draco to say something – he came to find him, after all. That must be a good sign, right? Maybe? Or maybe it’s just work related.

But as Draco says nothing, just staring, for a few seconds, Harry says: “Look, we have our first cucumbers. And see, over there. The tomatoes are already growing. And the courgettes are huge. And I can’t wait to see the—”

“Do you want to go for a drink?”

Harry stops and turns toward him, still pointing at the green beans.

“Now? Yeah, sure. Just, let me bring those to the kitchen and change. Hey, can you grab that basket over there?” Harry quickly wipes his knees and hands, then takes another basket. “So, what have you been up to, this week?” he asks as they start walking.

“Work, mostly. Nothing really exciting, you know.”

“What are you working on, beside us? The school, I mean.”

Draco glances at him with a smile. “I’m not really allowed to talk about that.”

“Oh, right.”

“And you? What did you do, this week?”

Welcoming the opportunity to ease the mood, Harry talks about the kids, the quidditch practice, the garden, Ginny’s visit on Wednesday that had all of the children mad for hours –some of them haven’t even calmed down yet –, the fundraiser he’s working on; anything to fill the walk to the kitchen. They go through the back entrance to give the vegetable to the cooks, and Harry turns to Draco.

“Do you want to wait outside while I go change, or…?”

Draco snorts. “Should you really be going inside with all that dirt on your shoes?”

Harry winces. “You’re right. I’ll take them off.” He leans to untie them, then takes off his socks as well. “This will have to do.”

“I promise I won’t say anything,” Draco smirks. Harry smiles back.

They sneak to the stairs and reach Harry’s room without seeing anyone.

“Make yourself comfortable,” he says, pointing vaguely to the room as he goes straight into the bathroom.

***

Draco is sitting on the bed when Harry comes back. He’s only wearing his dirty t-shirt and his underwear, and the hair tie is gone.

“You could have told me I had a huge smear of dirt on my forehead.”

“It was fun,” Draco smirks as Harry turns away from him to face his dresser.

Harry takes off his shirt, letting it drop on the floor. Draco is faced with the huge tattoo on his back, representing a wolf, a doe, a stag and a dog. The snake is coiled up at their feet, but seems to wake up as Harry stretches his arms. The other animals move as well, but their movements are more similar of a picture – just a repetitive loop. The snake seems truly alive, and he goes up to Potter’s right shoulder, joining the hippogriff splashing his wings.

Harry grabs a t-shirt and starts to pull it over his head when, without premeditation, Draco says: “Come here.”

He doesn’t really know what did it. Maybe it was the snake, maybe it was the nakedness, maybe it was the place. But, suddenly, all his good resolutions about not involving himself with someone who wants to keep him hidden are gone.

Harry turns, his t-shirt half on. “What?”

Draco leans forward and grabs his wrist, pulling him in. “Come here,” he repeats.

Harry stops between his legs and stares down at him.

“Stop putting on that shirt.”

Harry turns back. “The door is open.”

Draco pulls out his want and points it toward it. “Collaporta.” The door closes and locks. “Now, take off that shirt.”

Potter raises his eyebrows with a smirk. “I thought we were going for a drink.”

Draco is starting to feel unnerved from all the opposition Harry is giving him. “The drinks will still be there in an hour. Will you take off that fucking shirt?”

Potter’s smile is all too smug, now. He puts his hand on Draco’s neck and his thumb slowly runs across his jaw. “Ask again,” he dares him in a whisper.

His hands on Potter’s thighs, Draco leans forward and bites his hip.

***

“Here’s your usual, boys,” Rosmerta says as she drops two butterbeers and two plates of fries on the table, accompanied by ketchup, mayo and brown sauce.

“Amazing! I’ll let everyone know the service is off the charts here.”

She laughs as she leaves and Harry dives right into his fries.

Somehow, the conversation started being easier once they started having sex. Harry still doesn’t know where they stand exactly, but at least it’s somewhere beyond the polite, professional realm. In a place where they can have sex and the fries, or the other way around, where they can joke and kiss naked skin, talk about the mundane events of their week and put shivers on each other’s skin with their fingertips.

And if that’s what casual is, he loves it.

“So, what are your plans for the weekend?” Draco asks.

“Teddy has got his Hogsmeade outing tomorrow, so I told him I’ll take him for ice cream after lunch, but I guess I’m more excited about that than he is. He would probably rather hang out with his friends than with an old man like me.”

“I’m sure he’s happy to see you.”

“Yeah, well, you know how teenagers are. How about you? Any plans? Lunch with your mother?”

“Yes. Apart from that, I’ll be home, I guess. Zabini mentioned maybe he’ll drop by London over the weekend, but you never know with him, so we’ll see.”

“Oh, by the way, I’ll be in London next week, for this fundraiser thing I told you about. I’ll be there a couple of days. Would you like to… go for drinks?” His smile is wide enough to show his true meaning.

Draco shakes his head, glass in hand. “Why not. Just let me know when you’re free.”

When they leave the pub – Draco insisted about paying –, Harry turns to him, hands in his jeans’ pockets.

“Wanna come with me?”

Draco shakes his head then points his arm forward, indicating him to lead the way.


	6. Chapter 6

Ron and Hermione exchange a look as she passes him Harry’s plate, and she asks:

“So, Harry, Where have you been staying?”

“What do you mean? I’ve been at Grimmauld place.”

They exchange another look.

“Come on, Harry,” she sighs. “You’ve been here for almost two days, this is only the second meal we’re taking together, and—” she continues, as he opens his mouth to retort, “We know Neville is staying at your place and he says he’s barely seen you and your bed is still unmade. So, where have you been? Are you ok?”

“You can tell us if you’re in trouble, mate,” Ron adds, giving him his plate back, full of mushroom pie and lentil salad.

Harry sighs. He is touched by their concern, really. But, somedays, he would like a little less of it. He is fine, now, really. He hasn’t always been, and there was a time where their concern was one of the main things keeping him standing, but not anymore.

He can’t really lie to them, though. Hiding the truth is one thing, blatantly lying is another.

“Well, first of all,” he says as he plants his fork in the pie, “I’ve been really busy with this fundraiser.”

“That doesn’t explain where you’ve been sleeping,” Hermione says as Ron give her her own plate.

“I’m getting there. But you have to swear that you won’t judge, and that you won’t tell anyone.” Hermione opens her mouth while leaning toward him, and he rolls his eyes. “I’m fine, I swear, I am not in any kind of trouble, and nothing’s wrong. Do you swear?”

His look must be serious enough, because Hermione says “I swear” while Ron says “On Rose’s life.”

Harry nods, then stares at them a bit more, his fork still in hand. Then he drops: “I’ve been at Draco’s.”

There’s a few seconds of silence, then Hermione nods, and Ron says: “I’m sorry, what?”

“You swore not to judge!” Harry says, pointing at him with his fork. “On Rose’s life!”

“I’m not judging! I’m just… we’re talking about Draco _Malfoy_ , right?”

“Do you know any other Draco?”

“I mean, it makes sense, in a way,” Hermione says.

“What are you…” Ron starts, tuning to her. He then takes a deep breath. “Ok, right, I know he’s changed since school, and that he’s no longer a dick or anything, and I’m ok with him, you know, existing and doing his shit — I am! Really!” he adds to Hermione’s frown. “But like… he’s _Draco Malfoy_.”

“This sounds very much like judgement to me,” Harry mumbles, putting some pie in his mouth.

“I’m not judging! Ron protests. Look! Alright. Are you two together now, or what? What?” he says when Hermione rolls her eyes. “I’m being understanding! And supportive!”

Harry waves his remarks away. Actually, he was expecting a lot worse from Ron, but also from Hermione. This is good. He can work with this.

“We’re not together, it’s just casual, and that’s precisely why I don’t want you to tell anyone.”

Hermione raises her eyebrows. “Harry, you don’t do casual.”

“I do!” He protests. “I’ve done casual before.”

Ron snorts as he sits, his plate full. “Mate, you’ve never been casual about anything ever.”

“I can start now,” Harry pouts. “But I want to go back to what you said earlier about it making sense,” he says to Hermione. “Why? It doesn’t make sense even to me.”

Hermione crosses her arms and leans back on her chair. She stays silent a few seconds, looking for her words. “Look, after the war, your problem with dating has been that you either met someone from the wizarding community who knew all about you and idolized you, or a muggle who knew nothing about you but with whom you couldn’t share your trauma.”

Harry nods, thinking about his few past relationships. There’s some truth in that, even if he never really saw it himself.

“But with Draco, you don’t have that problem. He clearly won’t idolize you, but he knows what you’ve been through, and he’s been through the same thing, in a way – _in a way_ , I said,” she adds to shut up Ron. “I’m no saying there is no issue with him, but at least these ones are out of the way. Besides, from what I’ve seen of him lately, he does seem perfectly nice.”

Harry snorts in his lentils. “Nice is not a word I would use to describe him.”

She rolls her eyes. “You know what I mean. If he makes you happy, Harry, I’m happy for you.”

Relief fills his lungs. She does seem genuine. But then he remembers the situation.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because it’s just casual.”

“You staying at his place for the last three nights doesn’t seem very casual to me,” Ron says, his mouth full.

“ _Technically_ , I’m staying at my place, that’s where I left all my stuff. I just happened to sleep at his place every night since I’ve been there. That wasn’t planned.”

“And tonight, after you leave us,” Ron smirks, “will you _randomly_ end up at his place?”

Harry buries his head in his plate. They don’t need to know that he suggested to Draco that he may come over after dinner and that Draco didn’t say no.

Ron laughs. “Yeah, that doesn’t sound very casual.”

“It doesn’t matter what it sounds like,” Harry snaps, “He’s not interested in anything else.”

Both Ron and Hermione immediately still. Harry keeps his head lowered over his plate, though he’s not eating anymore.

“Did he say that explicitly?” Hermione eventually asks softly.

Harry shakes his head and plunges his fork into the salad. “He didn’t need to.” He raises his head and, looking at his friends, adds. “Look, I’m not entirely stupid. I’m always the one who suggest we may meet, he never has a nice word for me, and he never even really says yes to anything I suggest, he just does it, and he never says anything personal about himself. I mean, both the sex and the conversation are great, but I’m not blind, I know that’s all it is. And that’s fine.”

“Please don’t give any details about sex with Malfoy,” Ron winces.

“I wasn’t going to.”

“Are you sure it’s not because he thinks that _you_ want it casual?” Hermione asks.

“I’m leaving every door open, Hermione! If he doesn’t want to go through them, that’s not on me.”

“Alright, don’t take it out on me, I’m just saying.”

He sighs. “Sorry. I’m not mad at you. I’m not mad at all. I’m seeing Draco, it’s casual, it will lead nowhere, I’m fine with it, that’s all there is to say about it. Alright?”

He smiles at them, and they smile back, but he doesn’t like the pity he sees in the look they exchange briefly.

***

Potter didn’t lie: he put him on the fundraiser’s guest list, and the event is fancy dress. Draco hesitated until the last moment about coming, even if Potter assured him no one would bat an eye about his presence and that there would be free food by an excellent caterer. Draco pushes back a smile. Of course Potter would think about food. Draco doesn’t know whether it’s from hanging out with kids, but Potter always has a dozen of snacks in his pockets and seems to be constantly eating when there’s food around.

Potter also said he could bring a plus one, and Draco asked whether he meant a lover. Potter had the decency to look away and say he meant a friend. Draco hesitated about that too, but if he brought a friend he would have to explain to them what they were doing here, so he didn’t want that.

So here he is, alone, wearing a pretty fine suit – though not his best, he doesn’t want Potter to believe he put too much effort into this –, not knowing exactly what to expect or with who he’ll be able to have a conversation here.

“Draco!” He hears on his left and turns to see Padma, wearing a stunning green sari. She comes to him and gives him a quick one-sided hug, a smile on her lips. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight. It’s good to see you.”

“Good to see you too. The place looks amazing.”

It truly does. It’s a vast hall with glass ceiling, filled with plants and organized in a way that makes it look like a series of small enough conversation corners, and not a vast, empty room.

“You’ll tell that to Harry, he’s the one who took care of everything. He’s busy talking to all the ministry officials right now, but I’m sure you’ll be able to catch up with him at some point. Come on, let me show you around.”

Padma swiftly laces her arm through his and guides him through the room, telling him about the different events planned tonight and stopping from time to time to talk with some – probably important – people. She always introduces him as “Draco, who works at the ministry,” and everyone nods politely at him, some even shaking his hand and asking “how do you do?” And, despite doing his best being attentive to what Padma is saying and showing, he can’t help but look for Potter in the crowd. When he spots him, he has to do a double take.

Where he was expecting a clean jean and a t-shirt with no holes – what he thought Potter’s idea of “fancy dress” was –, he sees a dark green, well-tailored suit, on a crisp white shirt. With his dark hair that he slightly trimmed before coming to London to stop it from constantly falling into his eyes, Potter is stunning. Not that he would ever tell him. Or anyone. And – is he wearing a tie? Draco doesn’t want to dwell on that.

Potter is talking and laughing with some people Draco recognizes as high-ranking ministry workers, including the minister himself. From where he’s standing with Padma, Draco has no idea what Potter is saying, but everyone seems fascinated by it, and Draco totally understands them.

Potter suddenly spots them, and his smiles widen as he waves at Draco, signalling them to come over. Or was he waving and smiling at Padma?

They make their way to him through the densifying crowd, and Harry greets them with a beaming smile and “Draco! I’m so glad you could make it!” while he pulls him in a quick hug.

He then turns back to the rest of the group. “You know Padma Patil, of course, our wonderful headmistress, who does all the hard work while I’m here telling you jokes. And you may know Draco Malfoy, who works at the ministry, in the secrecy and security department.” He keeps his hand on Draco’s shoulder.

Draco shakes hand with the small group, and everyone is polite with him, even if he’s sure to see the minister frowning slightly. They make some idle chat for a couple of minutes, then Potter says:

“I’m so sorry, but I have to leave you in the hands of Padma for now, my duty calls elsewhere. I’ll talk to you all later?”

Draco sees Padma shooting daggers at him, but Potter smiles to all and excuses himself, gently pulling Draco with him. When they’re far enough, he whispers to him:

“Thanks for the rescue. McKinnon makes terrible jokes and I have to laugh at all of them.”

Draco doesn’t know where Potter is dragging him, but they’re stopped on the way by a lot of people who want a word with the Boy Who Lived. He indulges them all, though keeps it quick by pretending “urgent matters” expect him.

Five minutes later, he’s dragging Draco behind the stage, then through a door leading to a small dressing room.

“Thank god,” he sighs once it’s closed, leaning against it. “I hate these things.”

“You seem to be doing good, though.” Draco says, almost bitterly.

“It’s part of the job,” Potter smiles sadly as he loosens his tie with one hand.

Draco is mesmerized by the gesture, but he catches himself up and takes a step back.

“You look great,” Harry says with a smirk. “I’m glad you came.”

“I wanted to see what it was,” Draco says noncommittally, his throat dry.

“Sorry for not telling you it was boring,” Potter laughs as he walks past him to grab a glass of water on the table. “I just thought you might make things more fun.” He hands him the glass.

Draco aches an eyebrow. “Did you invite me to have sex?”

“What?” Potter laughs. “No! I have to be on stage in five minutes to give the opening speech.” He takes back his glass since Draco didn’t take it.

Draco refuses to admit he feels a bit disappointed and leans against the back wall, hands in his pockets.

“I just thought you could provide me a way out at some point”, Potter continues, leaning on the table. “It’s nice to know there are people around to whom I actually enjoy talking. Ron and Hermione are here too, but they usually leave early, because of the babysitter.” He winces. “Sorry. I invited you for selfish reasons, I guess.”

Draco almost wants to say he came for selfish reasons. “Well, I came because I heard the food was good,” He says instead with a half smile.

Potter laughs. “Yeah, knock yourself out on the buffet. You can even leave early too, you know, if you’re bored. I won’t blame you.”

“I’ll see how it goes,” Draco says, though he already knows he doesn’t want to miss a minute of Potter dressed like that.

“Thanks,” Potter smiles. He turns to the mirror, pretending to arrange his hair which falls back the exact same way, and risks a quick glance toward Draco’s reflexion. “Can I… can I come around later? When it’s over, I mean. It will probably finish late, though, so you will probably be asleep, it will be better if I go back to my place, I guess—”

“You can come,” Draco interrupts him.

Potter’s smile widen and he sighs “Thanks.” He turns back and takes some cards out of his jacket. “Okay, time for the speech. Wish me luck.”

“As if you need any,” Draco smirks.

Harry turns back to him. “How do I look?”

Draco’s eyes run from his head to his toes. _Amazing_ , he wants to say. _Stunning_. _Perfect in those clothes, though maybe I would like it better if you took them off. Incredibly handsome_. Instead, he takes his hands off his pockets and readjusts his tie. Harry’s breath hitches under his fingers. Draco’s hand lingers on his chest as he flattens the fabric.

“Like the Chosen One,” he says with a smirk.

Potter’s smile falters briefly, only for a second. He takes a step back, and Draco’s hand fall down. He regrets not pulling him in.

“See you later,” Potter says as he walks to the door. “Thanks for coming. Enjoy the buffet and the champagne.”

Barely a minute later, Draco hears applauses coming from the open door. Potter must be on stage.

He leans his head back against the wall, feeling like he missed something there.

***

Against Draco’s neck, Harry whispers in the dark: “I’m leaving tomorrow.”

His throat is tight. He has the impression Draco has been distant tonight – more than usual –, as if he did something wrong. Or maybe he’s getting bored with him already? He shouldn’t have invited him to the fundraiser. It was boring, and noisy, and why did he think Draco would enjoy it when he hates them himself? That was a terrible idea.

Holding Harry’s hand against his belly, Draco whispers back without turning: “Okay. You’ve done all you needed to do in London?”

“Yeah.” Harry is afraid he’ll scare him if he says too much.

There’s a silence, then Draco rolls over to face him. His left hand rests on Harry’s hip and, with his right, he pushes back the hair from Harry’s forehead.

“You did a good job, with the fundraiser. No one could tell you hated it.”

Harry smiles. “Except you.”

“Well, you told me,” Draco laughs. Then, after a few seconds of studying Harry, he asks: “Can I come over next week?”

Harry stares at him, then nods. “Yeah. Sure. When you want.” He leans forward and smiles as he kisses Draco’s neck. “You know where to find me.”


	7. Chapter 7

As he gets out of the bathroom, drying his hair, Draco snarls:

“Why don’t you live in London?”

“I have a house in London,” Potter answers, putting on his socks.

“You don’t live there, though,” Draco pouts as he sits next to him on the bed.

He’s still drying his hair with one hand, and Potter puts a mug of coffee in the other.

“There’s too many people in London.” Potter says as he gets up, turning around his bed in look of something, his own mug in hand, while Draco starts gulping half of his. “Too many… you know, things,” he waves vaguely.

Draco lowers his cup to stare at him. “You literally live a building surrounded by thousands of kids.”

Potter laughs as he leans and pushes the bed sheets. “There’s like, two dozens, at most. Who live there, I mean. Maybe a bit more in the summer.”

“Still,” Draco mumbles. “That’s scarier than London.”

“Not to me.”

Potter emerges, triumphant, one shoe in hand. Draco’s nose wrinkles.

“How can you live like that.”

Potter takes a sip. “I’m sorry, did you hear me say anything about the freakish neatness of your place? No. Then don’t tell me anything about how I organize my stuff.”

“ _Organize_ ,” Draco snorts.

“Careful, I can take that coffee right back from you,” Potter says, moving back to him, extending his hand that holds the shoe.

Draco pulls the mug to his chest and glares at him. Potter laughs as he drops the shoe to the floor and leans to kiss his temple.

“I wouldn’t do that to you, don’t worry,” he whispers before going in search of the second shoe.

Draco has always hated morning people, and he’s doing his best to conjure that feeling right now, but sadly the only thing he gets is tenderness for the man twirling around him.

“Besides, apparating is the exact same thing whether you do it from here or from your place, so your complaints are irrelevant.”

“I’m not complaining,” Draco mumbles, the nose in his mug.

“More coffee?” Potter asks as he drops the second shoe with the first one.

Draco holds out his mug. From downstairs, the cries of children are already coming to them.

“Do you have any plans for Sunday?” Potter asks with a glance to him as he gives him a refill.

Draco takes back his mug. “Lunch with my mother. Why?”

Potter leans against the desk, his smile almost shy. “If you don’t have any plans for the evening, do you wanna come here and have a drink? Or I can come to London, if you can’t stand the mess of this room.”

Draco would stand any type of room with him, but he doesn’t tell him that.

“I’ll let you know.” He places his coffee on the floor next to him as he leans to put on his shoes.

He already knows the answer will be yes. Any other plans that might form in between now and then will come second to this.

There’s some loud bangs on the door, almost making Draco jump.

“Harry! What the fuck are you doing, we need you!”

“Oh shit,” Harry mumbles before adding, louder: “I’ll be right there!”

He finishes his coffee in one gulp with a panicked look to the door, then sits next to Draco, thigh against thigh, to put on his shoes.

“Sorry, I got to go, I guess,” he whispers. “Take all the time you need to get ready, don’t worry, and let me know about Sunday, alright?” He turns to him with a smile, putting his hand on Draco’s thigh and planting a kiss on his cheek. “Have a nice day,” he adds before jolting up to the door, here he turns to wink at him.

And then he’s gone, and Draco is alone in his room, hearing his voice getting away from him. The coffee suddenly turns very bitter in his mouth. He always feels great with Potter, until he’s reminded that Potter exists in an outside world that he clearly doesn’t want Draco to be a part of. A world where the Chosen One can be on friendly terms with a Malfoy, can have drinks and chats with him, but nothing more. Would Weasley and Granger have been as polite to him at the fundraiser, if they knew the truth? What would they say, if they knew that, behind closed door, Potter and him were fucking? What would the world say? And what would Potter say, if the world knew?

But, no matter what Draco tells himself about not wanting to be anyone’s dirty little secret, every time he sees Potter’s smile, or hears his voice, he thinks “just one last time.” And how many last times has it been, now?

He sighs, gets up and adjust his tie and his hair before disapparating.

***

“I’m glad you could make it,” Harry smiles as he hugs Draco in front of the Three Broomsticks. “I thought you would have other plans.”

Draco doesn’t really hug him back, but Harry pretends he doesn’t care. Draco isn’t the affectionate type, so what. They’re not dating, anyway.

“I don’t usually have plans on Sundays evenings,” Draco retorts as they walk to the door.

“Well, I thought you may have, since it’s your birthday,” Harry says as he holds the door open.

Draco stops in his tracks. Oh shit. Doesn’t he like birthdays? Maybe Harry shouldn’t have brought that up.

“How do you know?” Draco asks – his tone isn’t exactly cold, but it isn’t warm either.

Harry decides to play it off casually, as he does best. “I guess all these years storing useless information on you to fuel my feud at Hogwarts finally paid off. But I won’t mention it again, if you mind it.”

Draco shakes his head. “No. It’s fine. I was just surprised.”

Harry indicates the inside of the pub with his head. “Come on in, then. Drinks on me to celebrate.”

A few minutes later, they’re seated at what Harry now considers their usual table, with fries and butterbeers. Harry raises his glass.

“Happy birthday.”

Draco sighs, then clinks his glass with him. “Alright, Potter. To your stalking years.”

“Come on, don’t act like you didn’t stalk me in return.”

Draco rolls his eyes. “We both had questionable hobbies.”

Harry snorts. That’s the least he could say. But dwelling on their Hogwarts hobbies isn’t part of tonight’s plans.

“So how comes you had no plans for tonight? It’s your birthday! Why don’t you have plans on your birthday?”

“Are you insinuating that I don’t have friends?”

“Well, I don’t know. You never mention anything about them, anyway, so how could I guess.”

“I have friends, Potter,” Draco says with disdain – but a smile curls his lips anyway as he brings his glass to his mouth. “It just happens that most of them live abroad, now.

Ah, yes. Most Slytherin pureblood families fled the country after the war and, though a good part of them have now been pardoned, they still haven’t returned. Harry never liked the Slitheryn crew, so he can’t really say he misses them – but, again, at the time he didn’t like Draco either, so maybe things would be different now. It must suck for Draco, anyway, not to have his friends around. Harry feels suddenly blessed to always have had Ron and Hermione close enough, without mentioning the Weasleys, Neville or Luna. He doesn’t know what he would have become if he hadn’t had this support system around him.

“Don’t they come by, from time to time?”

“They do. But I don’t exactly schedule birthday parties.” He rolls his eyes. “Don’t give me the pity look, Potter, I celebrated with my mother at lunch. You’re not doing the white knight rescue of my day you think you’re doing.”

“I don’t think that!” Harry defends himself – though he was kinda thinking that. “I just don’t think people should be alone on their birthday.”

“So you offered to entertain me if no one else did.”

“That’s not what I meant! I’m happy to celebrate with you. I’m your friend too, you know. And besides, I’ve never heard you complain about the entertainment I provide.”

Draco hides in his glass, and Harry feels a bit proud of himself for that.

“Don’t puff yourself up like a Gryffindor, Potter.”

“You know what, today is your birthday, so I’ll let you jab at me all you want. Consider it my present.”

“How kind of you.”

But, despite the sneer in his words, Draco already seems more relaxed, and the smile on his lips is kind.

Harry relaxes too. He was afraid it had been a bad idea. He wondered for a while what was the policy on birthday for someone you were seeing casually. Do you do dinner? Presents? Sex? Ignore it completely or acknowledge it in a quick letter? In the end, he just decided to treat this like their usual dates – well, almost. And, so far, it seems to be working.

They end up talking about their weeks, Draco briefly describes the lunch with his mother, and even mentions Zabini’s visit, who eventually turned up the day before for a few hours – apparently, they celebrated wildly enough together, which comforts Harry on Draco’s social circle situation.

When they leave the bar, Draco doesn’t wait for his invitation to follow him. In the almost dark of Scottish summer nights, Harry grabs his hand. Draco doesn’t stop him.

Once the bedroom door is closed, Draco is all over him, hands in his hair and under his leather jacket, mouth on his jaw and neck, body pressed against him. It takes all of Harry’s will power to push him back and say:

“Wait. I have something for you.”

Draco retreats a few inches. “Are you talking about your dick?”

Harry laughs. “No. But we can come back to that subject afterward, though, if you want.”

Draco sighs and sits on the bed.

Harry shrugs his jacket on the chair and starts searching the deck. He has an approximate idea of where he put it, but in the dark, it’s not easy to find.

“Lumos,” Draco says behind him.

“Thanks.”

A few seconds later, he finds the envelop and turns back to him.

“Here. Happy birthday,” he says with a smile.

Draco stares at it for a couple of seconds. “You got me a present?”

“Yes?” Harry answers, suddenly unsure. “I didn’t know if I could, or if I had to, so in doubt… anyway, it’s nothing big, I just thought you might like it. And if you don’t, you can sell it, I won’t be mad.”

Draco takes the envelop carefully.

“Let me,” Harry says as he takes his wand from him as he sits by his side.

With both hands free, Draco opens the envelop and takes out its content.

“Quidditch tickets?” he comments, without the usual sneer in his voice.

“Yeah. You said you likes games, but didn’t really think about going, so I thought you might go and enjoy it if you had the tickets.”

“There’s two of them. Are you planning on coming with me?”

“If you want me to. I mean, you can invite anyone you want, a friend, your mother, whoever. They’re yours. Just because I got them doesn’t mean you have to take me.”

“Good to know.” He then turns to Harry as he puts the tickets back in the envelop and smiles. “Thanks, Potter.”

“Well, happy birthday.” He leans toward Draco, his hand on his thigh, and kisses his neck.

“Now give me back my wand, Potter.” Draco says, reaching for his hand.

“Is this a metaphor?”

Draco laughs as he grabs his wand back. “Nox.”

***

“I’m gonna start to believe you really don’t have any friends,” Potter says as he climbs the stairs behind Draco.

“You know, most people would say ‘thanks’.”

“Well, considering I’m the one who actually got the tickets, do I have to, really?”

“I know your social education is lacking, Potter, but did really no one teach you how presents work?”

“Sorry, I had no parents for that.”

Draco turns and arches an eyebrow, worried he’s gone too far. “I thought parents were off limits?” he says, to make sure.

“To you. They’re my own parents, I’m allowed to joke about them.”

“I didn’t know one could joke about their own parents.”

“Your social education is lacking, clearly. I’ll teach you that, you’ll teach me about presents, alright?” Potter winks.

Draco laughs softly, shaking his head, and turns back ahead.

The truth is, he didn’t even have to think about who he would bring to the game more than half a second. From the moment he opened the envelop, he knew it would be Harry, even if he only asked him the day before. He tried to justify it to himself by thinking he didn’t want to have to explain to anyone where he got the tickets, or that Potter would be jealous if he brought anyone else, but both of these are false excuses. He just wanted to come with him. And he doesn’t want to dwell too much on that, thank you very much.

“How far are those seats, exactly, Potter? Are we sitting on the roof?”

“Almost there. It’s gonna be worth it, you see.”

Draco feels like they’ve been climbing for hours, and he’s even afraid, with Potter’s stop at the food stand, that they’ll miss the beginning.

But then they emerge at the top of the bleachers, and Draco has to stop to take in the view.

“Not afraid of heights, I hope?” Potter whispers in his ear.

Draco turns with what he hopes is a look of disdain, but is probably closer to wonder.

Potter laughs and walks in front of him. “Come on. It’s about to start.”

The box they’re in is around the middle of the field, high on top, just above the players, for a panoramic vision of the game. There’s only a few seats there, and most of them aren’t even taken. Potter walks toward the front row and turns back to him, his smile crinkling up to his eyes.

“Are you coming or are you standing there?”

An enormous roar fills the stadium as the players enter the pitch, and Draco quickly joins Potter, who’s already clapping with everyone else. Draco sits next to him, still bewildered.

“You said this wasn’t anything big, Potter.”

“What? It’s just a quidditch game. Though a good one, I hope.”

“Potter. These are the best seats in the house.”

“Well, I was hoping you’d take me.”

Draco has a hard time settling in. That Potter knew his birthday was a thing, getting a present from him another one, but _this_ actually being the present? Is Potter trying to apologize for hiding him away?

But Draco remembers the words from Padma and Hermione. He’s being unfair. Potter is apparently just being his usual generous self. Draco just never thought he’s actually be on the receiving end of it. That’s just how Potter is, probably. He shouldn’t try and see anything special in it.

Potter takes his hand on his knee and squeezes it. “Happy birthday, Draco,” he says with a wild smile.

“Are your hands sticky with chocolate?”

Potter snorts and squeezes again. “Most people would say ‘thanks’, you know.”

Draco huffs and turns away from him, but doesn’t let go of his hand. “Fuck you, Potter.”

“Yes, that’s the plan for later,” Potter laughs. “Hey, want a chocolate frog?”

Draco tries very hard to focus on the game.


	8. Chapter 8

“What the fuck, Potter?”

Harry turns and waves. “Hey, Draco! Good, you’re here.”

“We were supposed to meet for _drinks_ , Potter. Why have I been told to join you on a quidditch pitch?”

“Well, something came up.”

“Something like what?”

“A quidditch tournament.”

Draco looks up at the kids behind Harry, who turns too. A handful of children are flying haphazardly around the pitch, and half the balls are abandoned on the floor. In the middle of that, Ginny is hanging upside down, Debbie and Nina flying around her and shrieking with laughter. The kids not on brooms are standing or running in the bleachers, barely controlled by the adults present.

“That’s not a quidditch tournament, Potter, that’s a disaster.”

“Well, good enough.”

The school year is almost over, the weather is splendid, and both kids and adults have absolutely no desire to stay inside. Ginny’s surprise visit was an excellent excuse to organize an impromptu quidditch tournament. Everybody joined in on the field, even Padma, teams were made, and the winners have been promised ice cream for desert – spoiler alert: there will be no loser, and ice cream was already planned for desert long before that.

He knows this was not his original plan with Draco, but he left a word with Rosmerta for him to join them, hoping Draco might enjoy this too.

“I came for _drinks_ , Potter,” Draco hisses. “Not this… whatever this is,” he gestures vaguely toward the field.

Harry puts his arm around Draco’s shoulder and turns with him toward the pitch. It truly _is_ a disaster. He loves it.

“Come on. How about we show these kids how it’s done?”

Draco frowns. “What are you talking about, Potter?”

Harry squeezes him briefly. “You know, a classic Slytherin versus Gryffindor. To reminisce the good old days.”

Draco turns to him. “Do you _want_ to play quidditch against me?”

“Always,” Harry laughs before walking toward the centre of the field.

“I don’t have a broom, Potter,” Draco calls after him.

Harry turns to him, still walking. “I’ll get you one!” Then he walks to Ginny, whistling to get her attention. “Hey, Ginny, wanna play real quidditch?”

She effortlessly climbs back on her broom and lowers herself closer to him. “What do you have in mind? Hey, Draco, good to see you.”

“Weasley,” Draco says behind Harry.

“I know you’re not on that level anymore, but how do you feel about a good old Slytherin versus Gryffindor?”

“No offense to you, but I’ll catch the snitch in half a second and that wouldn’t be an interesting match for anyone.”

“No offense to you, but you wouldn’t play seeker.”

“How dare you, a mere human being, dismiss me, a professional quidditch player?”

“I just want to give the other team a chance to not lose horribly. Besides, I have an old feud to settle.” He points to Draco behind his shoulder.

“Oh, Harry, you should have started with that.”

“I literally did.”

She laughs and flies up, whistling much louder than Harry to get everyone, kids included, to quiet down. “Listen up, everyone! Children, this has been fun, but now it’s time for the real deal. I want you all to go to the seats, you’re about to see a real lesson in quidditch today. Adults, you’re all invited to the pitch for a revival of the most classic of matches: Gryffindor versus Slytherin.”

“I’m a Hufflepuff!” one of the newest teachers, Melina, yells.

Ginny does a quick survey of the stadium, then says: “It’s alright, we’ll do Gryffindor and Hufflepufff versus Slytherin and Ravenclaw.”

“What, dumb versus smart?” Draco yells from next to Harry.

“I never thought I’d ever hear you call yourself dumb, Malfoy,” Ginny deadpans, “but I guess people really can change.”

Harry feels Draco seething next to him and leans on his shoulder with his elbow. “You know she’s all talk, right?” He whispers to him.

Draco huffs. “We’ll see on the pitch who’s all talk, here.”

Harry laughs. “That’s the spirit I love. Come on, Ginny has got the team making all in hand, let’s go get brooms and balls.”

He starts walking to the locker rooms, and feels some relief when he hears Draco’s footsteps behind him. Just to be sure, once they’re far enough from the others, he says: “You know I don’t believe in this Slytherin-Gryffindor rivalry anymore, right?”

Draco arches an eyebrow to him. “Well, you better start believing again soon enough, because I’m going to crush your soul and your ego on that field.”

Harry tries to imitate him, but he’s never been able to control a single eyebrow, so he probably just looks surprised. He ends up laughing when Draco rolls his eyes. “Come on, admit this is better than drinks.”

“I wouldn’t say better, no.”

“Admit this is alright, then.”

Draco turns to him. “Depends what’s at stake.”

“Oh, you want to make it… spicier?”

Draco’s smirk doesn’t forebode anything good. Harry loves it. Draco takes a step closer, and Harry is very glad they’re hidden inside the locker room at that moment.

“If I win,” Draco says in a low growl, “I want you to admit I always was a better player than you.”

Harry can’t help but erupt into laughter.

“Also,” Draco adds, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt, “I’ll own you.”

Harry leans forward and kisses him. He doesn’t tell Draco he already does own him.

***

Harry is as dishevelled as ever when they get back to the field, and Draco hopes Potter didn’t lie to him when he said his hair was perfect earlier, right before they left the locker room..

“We almost waited!” Ginny yells at them, as everyone is already gathered on the field, divided in two teams.

She has also raised the goals, for something resembling more of a real quidditch pitch.

“Try carrying twelve broomsticks,” Harry yells back.

“Okay,” Ginny explains as Harry passes the broomsticks to everyone and places the trunk with the balls in the middle of the field, “So the rules are the classic ones, scoring is ten points, snitch is one hundred and fifty and stops the game. Adam and Debbie are the referees and count the points, Harry and Malfoy are the seekers and the team captains. Losers pay their rounds of drinks tonight. No hurting anyone, no foul play, apart from that, all is fair in quidditch and love. Ready to play?”

All of Draco’s focus is now on the game he doesn’t intend to lose. He doesn’t remember ever wanting to win that bad at anything before – even all of the other times he played against Potter.

Except for Debbie and Adam, standing next to the trunk, all of the kids have retreated to the seats and seem very eager to see things unfold. Draco has never seen them this calm. He finds it almost scary.

“Alright!” Ginny yells. “Everyone in position. Captains, shake hands. On the count of three, Debbie, open the trunk.”

As other players retreat to the back of the field, Draco and Potter go to stand in the middle. Potter is the first one to extend his hand as he mounts his broom, and Draco shakes it tightly, trying to convey his determination through all of his body and face.

“May the best man win,” Potter says.

“Shut up, Potter.”

Just as the countdown starts, he swears he sees the tiny head of Potter’s snake tattoo rise above the collar of his shirt, and Potter winks at him as he shoots up to the sky.

***

There is no feeling in the world equivalent to being high up over a quidditch field, with the wind against your ear and that mixture of adrenaline and deep focus as Harry looks for the snitch. No matter what he has done, nothing ever compared to that. It’s both urgency and freedom that courses through his veins. He wants to win today, not because he has to prove anything to Draco, but because he always had a competitive side in him, and if you aren’t playing quidditch to win, then why are you here?

But if he loses? Well, he’ll let Draco own him.

As he flies above his friends and coworkers, he can’t help but smile. Even Padma, who isn’t the biggest fan of quidditch, climbed on a broom today, and Amantha, who pretends not to care about anything, is fiercely holding a bat. He loves seeing them all gathered here, having fun, yelling at each other and enjoying the day. He also loves the excitement of the kids in the bleachers, and how seriously Adam and Debbie seem to be taking their job. This is happiness. If every day could be like today, then he wouldn’t want for anything else in his life.

He also feels a quick surge of pride. _He built this_. They’re all here today because of him. But he quickly stops himself. No. _They_ built all this. Together. Maybe he was the impulsion, but this isn’t his alone. This place, this day, it exists because of all of them. And he feels insanely proud of them all.

He’s won already.

“You know, Potter, winning is going to be a lot less fun if you don’t even play,” Draco says as he flies past him.

“You don’t win by flying around aimlessly,” he shoots back.

But Draco is right: he will not win by standing here either. He will rejoice later about today being perfect; for now, he has a game to win.

He soon focuses on the game at hand, keeping an eye on the players while looking for that golden glimmer that will lead him to victory. The exercise is familiar, and he keeps tabs of the score at the back of his head, circling the field at different heights, watching nowhere and everywhere at once. He also keeps an eye on bludgers, would one fly his way, and on Draco, in case he would see something.

There are a few false starts, on both sides, but, as the score grows, the snitch is still invisible to all.

Until he sees Draco flying up, a deep focus on his face, eyes set right above his head, and glances up to see a golden glimmer. He shoots up immediately, determined to get there first.

Draco has a head start, but Harry has a better broomstick, so their chances are about equal. Harry understands, thought, that he won’t be able to catch the snitch before Draco does, and his best chance is in placing himself right between them, blocking Draco’s path, who has to stop abruptly.

“Sorry about that,” he smiles.

Draco is seething. “Fuck you, Potter.”

“You wish,” Harry laughs, flying a bit higher in hope to catch sight of the snitch.

Draco adopts the same strategy, though a few yards away.

It lasts a few minutes, until Harry spots a spark somewhere in between him and Draco. His first reflex would be to fly straight for it, but then Draco would follow right away and the run would be too tight. So, instead, he keeps an eye on it and decides to widen his circles to get closer, without catching Draco’s attention. His heart is beating fast, and the only thing that matters to him now is winning.

When he’s above the snitch, he dives straight toward it, extending his arm as soon as his trajectory is stabilised. From the corner of his eye, he sees Draco following straight after, but he doesn’t keep his eyes of the snitch, straight ahead of him. Sensing his closeness, the ball starts flying forward as well, but Harry uses his acceleration to the most, even if he feels Draco’s wind right against him. Stretching his body to the maximum, he jerks forward and his fingers close around the tiny ball. He laughs and rises straight up, barely avoiding Draco, right behind him.

“You fucking—” He hears Draco say behind him, right before the children underneath start yelling and clapping.

Harry flies down to his level, fully smiling. “All is fair in quidditch and love, right?”

“I fucking hate you, Potter.”

“Don’t worry,” Harry winks, “I’ll make defeat sweeter to you.”

Draco can’t answer, as they’re surrounded by their teammates, and Harry’s gather around him for hugs and cheers. They lower down to the floor, and Debbie announces proudly: “190 to 50 for Gryffindor-Hufflepuff.”

Harry turns to Draco, whose lips are still in a thin line. He holds the hand that isn’t wrapped around the snitch. “No hard feelings, Draco. You played well.”

He sees Draco hesitate before extending his hand to shake. “You fucking Gryffindor cheat,” he mumbles.

“I’m sorry, what was that?” Harry asks loudly

Draco sighs and looks away. “You were better than me,” he mumbles ever lower.

“Louder for the people in the back!” Harry laughs, not letting go of his hand.

“You fucking won,” Draco erupts, “what more do you want?”

Harry squeezes his hand and winks at him. “I’ll accept that as a compliment. Always a pleasure playing against you, Draco.”

He finally lets go and Draco turns away, shooting daggers at him.

Both teams are shaking hands and hugging in a spirit of comradry. Harry would like to go after Draco, hug him, kiss him and tell him it was just luck, but Draco doesn’t seem in the mood for that and everyone else is around them. He resolves to do that later as Ginny pulls him in for a hug and drags him to the rest of his team, who joyfully claps him on the back. Children are also gathering around them all, yelling and jumping and asking wild questions. Harry feels good seeing some of them are surrounding Draco, keeping him busy.

“Come on, you hero,” says Ginny as she puts an arm around his shoulders. “Help me bring all those broomsticks and balls back to the locker room.”

“Yeah, sure,” Harry answers with a last glance to Draco.

“See you all at the Three Broomsticks! Losers pay!” Ginny say as they leave.

Some adults are gathering children to bring them back to school, others are still discussing, and Draco is apparently engaged in a pretty intense debate with Nina.

“So,” Ginny says as they’re far enough, “You and Malfoy.”

“What?” Harry answers, caught short. “What are you talking about?”

She laughs. “Come on, Harry, not to me. You’re dating, right?”

“We’re not,” he fumbles. “We’re just friends. That’s it. Friends. Friendly.”

“Harry,” she says sternly, though here eyes are shining. “Please, don’t lie to me. You two are clearly not just _friendly_. Or is that how kids call it these days?”

Harry stares at her, then sighs.

“We’re not dating, we’re friends. Who sleep together. Casually.”

“Yeah, right. Casually.”

“Yes, casually.” He glances at her, suddenly worried. “How did you know?”

“Well, first of all, I have eyes. Second of all, when he arrived, Debbie said he was your boyfriend, and Nina said that no, he was your nemesis, and Debbie asked if it wasn’t the same thing.” She chuckles. “That was the highlight of my day.”

Dread falls onto Harry’s stomach. “Does everybody know?”

Ginny shrugs. “No idea. No one else said anything, but I’m pretty sure some people have hunches about it. Why, you don’t want people to know? No one would care, you know. I know I don’t. You can date and fuck whoever you want, Harry.”

“I know I can,” he mumbles. “It’s just… I don’t think Draco wants to be with me. He’s clearly fine with fucking, but the rest? I don’t think he’s interested.”

“Oh, Harry.”

“And that’s fine!” he adds quickly. “I don’t mind! I can stay casual! I _am_ a very casual person.”

“Harry, you seem to be forgetting something.”

“What?”

“I know you. I’ve even _dated_ you. You can lie to everyone else, you can even lie to yourself, but you can’t lie to me.”

“I can lie to whoever I want,” he sulks.

Ginny laughs. “What I mean is, you’re the least casual person I know – apart from Hermione, maybe. And, also, you’ve always been bad at romance.”

“Gee, thanks for the pep talk.”

“I’m not done yet. What I mean is, don’t go self-sabotaging yourself there. You clearly like Draco, and he clearly likes you too. Don’t ruin this by… you know, being you.”

“Is the pep talk over, now?”

She stops and stares at him. “I will ask you one thing, Harry. And I need you to be honest. Does he make you happy?”

Harry sighs and look away, his throat dry. “Yes.”

“Good. Then tell him. You may be surprised by the answer.”

Harry isn’t exactly fond of surprises, as too many of those have backfired against him in the past. But he knows Ginny won’t let go, so he says “Alright.” He then turns to her. “But please don’t tell anyone about it. I don’t want people to know, and I don’t want him to be embarrassed.”

“Embarrassed why? Because he’s fucking you?” She shakes her head. “Come on, Harry, you’ve been on _Witch Weekly_ ’s top 10 most eligible bachelor’s list since the end of the war, if he’s embarrassed about that, he’s probably the only person alive in that case. But, fine,” she adds as she sees his look, “Your secret is safe with me, don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thanks,” he sighs, relieved.

“And, if he turns out to be a dick to you, don’t worry, I’ll kick his ass.”

He laughs.

***

Draco isn’t exactly mad about losing. Sure, he didn’t enjoy it, but that’s not the point. The point is, he’s mad at Potter for always pulling him into his fucking schemes, whether it be fundraiser events or quidditch games or whatever, and mad at himself for always falling into it. He’s mad at Potter for looking so handsome when he laughs, so graceful when he flies, for smiling so wide when he looks at him, and for acting so comfortable surrounded by his friends. But, most of all, he’s mad at himself for loving all that about him, so much it makes his heart ache. He really put himself in a huge fucking mess, didn’t he?

Because, even though Potter is sitting right next to him right now, and their legs are touching under the table, and Potter keeps dragging him into the conversation, he knows all that will crumble if anyone else gets the first hint of what’s exactly going on between them. He knows he should walk away now, before it’s too late.

But maybe it’s already too late.

Especially when, in the middle of the conversation, Potter turns to him and whispers: “Are you alright? We can go, if you want.”

And Draco shakes his head because, the truth is, he is alright.

He is more than alright.

And when he’s laying naked in Potter’s bed, later that night, he is still very much alright.

Even when Potter laughs when Draco asks him if he really did show his snake tattoo as the match started in hope to make him lose his concentration.

And even when, while falling asleep, Harry clumsily pats his head – or his shoulder – and mumbles “I like you, you know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did not come here to write quidditch games and yet it seems that it's the only thing happening.
> 
> by the way: i am moving over the next few days so i can't promise daily updates, though they will come back once i've settled.


	9. Chapter 9

Draco swears in the dark, before stumbling next to Harry.

“One day you will have to explain to me why you put your bed in the middle of the room and not against the wall, like some civilised human,” Draco hisses as he puts his weight on the mattress.

Harry laughs and, without looking, points his arm to the window. “The view.” He raises himself up on his elbow to stare at it, not resisting the temptation. The silhouette of the castle is shadowed against the luminous night sky where, at this time of the year, the sun always illuminate the horizon. “I love to see it when I wake up, and if I put the bed against the wall, then I have to stretch my neck, or get up, for that.”

Through the blurriness of his natural vision, he sees Draco turn to him. “Really, Potter? Hogwarts is why you live like a wild animal?”

Harry shrugs as he falls back on the mattress. “I like the place, you know. It was my first real home, and where I spent some of the best years of my life.”

Draco keeps staring at him. “The best years? Didn’t you almost get killed basically every year you spent there?”

“I actually did, once,” Harry says without thinking, regretting it as soon as it lingers in the silence that follows. He lays motionless, hoping the sentence actually flew past Draco and that he’s just silent because he’s lost in some daydream about his own time in Hogwarts.

“I’m sorry, what?” Draco eventually says.

“It’s okay, it was during the war,” he says, hoping that downplaying it will allow them to move on to other topics. “It was supposed to happen, anyway.”

“I’m sorry, _what_?” Draco repeats, sitting straighter.

Harry sighs and sits up too, searching for his glasses blindly with his hand before giving up. It’s better if he can’t really see him, probably. He pushes his hair back from his face and turns toward the window, where the shape of Hogwarts still glimmers. “Long story shorts,” he starts without turning to Draco, “Voldemort put some part of him in me when he tried to kill me when I was a baby, and if I wanted him to die completely, I had to die too. So I did. That’s all there is to it, really.”

“ _That’s all there is to it_? Do you hear yourself, really?”

He seems angry. Harry knew he shouldn’t have gone down that path. That’s why he never does. That, and he doesn’t really like to dwell on it, either.

“It’s alright. It’s all in the past, now. And can you promise not to tell anyone?” he asks, finally turning to him. He’s really glad he isn’t wearing his glasses. “No one knows, and I’d rather keep it that way.”

“No one…” Draco plunges his face into his hands and mumbles: “For fuck’s sake, Harry. You can’t just _casually_ say that you _died_ during the war because you _had to_ and that _it’s alright_ , and then expect me to just… move on from that?”

“Well, I did,” Harry shrugs, because yes, that was exactly what he was expecting – no, hoping.

He feels Draco’s hands grabbing his as he turns away. “Harry. Look at me.”

His voice is softer than usual. Harry turns back.

“I won’t tell anyone, okay? I promise. I swear… on my mother’s life. No one else will know. But… can you tell me? I just… you… fucking hell, Harry, you _died_.”

There’s some roughness in his voice, on the last word, that shatters the last of Harry’s barriers. He squeezes Draco’s hands.

***

Did that fucker just squeeze his hand? Did he really, just after telling him, in the most distanced tone, that he died because that was the only way to kill Voldemort, squeeze Draco’s hand to _comfort him_? And is he now smiling at him with pity, or something like that, in his eyes? That man is mad. He truly is.

“Okay, so,” Potter starts explaining, looking away as soon as he opens his mouth but not letting go of Draco’s hands, “I knew that Voldemort had put parts of his souls into other objects, and that they had to be destroyed if Voldemort was to die. It just turned out that, what Dumbledore didn’t tell me, is that I was one of those horcruxes – that’s the name of those things,” he adds when he quickly glances at Draco and notices his puzzled look, probably mistaking it for a question about the word and not a total bewilderment toward the actual subject they’re discussing. “So when I found out, on the night of the battle, that I had to die for it all to end, well, I did.” He stops there and stares at Draco, with that same little smile at the corner of his lips.

“But… you’re alive,” is all Draco finds to say at that point.

“Well, yeah. Something about the power of love or some shit. I don’t know, it’s magic. But yeah, then I killed the actual Voldemort, and all of his horcruxes were destroyed, and we all moved on.”

This is a lot of information for Draco to process all at once. He thought, after his own experience, after living under the same roof as the Voldemort, after being there at Hogwarts and at the battle, that he had a pretty good understanding of what happened. But turns out he didn’t know anything. No one knew anything.

And it gets even worse when Potter adds: “Your mother didn’t tell you about that?”

“My… what?”

Potter looks away, as if regretting he ever said that.

“Potter,” Draco insists, “what does my mother have to do with any of this wild story?”

Harry turns back to him, and there’s the first hint of emotion in his voice since the beginning of this conversation. “You don’t believe me, do you?”

Draco internally cringes at how he sees his phrasing could have been understood that way. “No! I believe you. I do. This is wild, okay, but I believe you.” This time, he’s the one who squeezes Harry’s hand. “I just don’t understand how my mother is involved in any of that.” Did his mother kill Potter?

“Well,” Harry turns away again, “She’s the reason I’m still alive. After Voldemort killed me – or, rather, killed the part of himself in me –, we were both out I don’t know for how long, and when he woke up he asked your mother to check if I was still alive, and I was, but she asked if you were alive, so I said yes, and she told him I was dead. If she hadn’t lied to him, I would probably have really ended dead. So it’s actually you who are the reason I’m alive, I guess.” There he is again with that smile.

His mother, saving Harry Potter. The most surprising thing about this is that it isn’t the most surprising thing he’s heard tonight.

“So you went to fight Voldemort, and he killed you?” he asks, trying to piece things together with the crumbs Harry is giving him.

“No, I didn’t go there to fight.”

“So you just…” Draco can’t even finish the sentence. He can’t imagine himself at seventeen, or even now, willingly walking to his death. Would he be able to do that? Would he have been?

And Harry is just sitting there, staring at him, telling him all this as if it isn’t the most heartbreaking story he’s ever heard, as if he wasn’t a kid who walked to his own death because he _had to_.

So Draco, at loss for words, just lets go of Harry’s hands and leans forward to hug him. “I’m sorry,” he whispers against his neck. “I’m so, so, sorry.”

He hears Harry chuckle as he wraps his arms around him, hugging him tighter. “It’s okay. It’s not your fault. I’m fine now. It’s okay.” And he’s rubbing Draco’s back and soothingly repeating these words, as if he wasn’t the one who actually had to go through that.

Draco pushes him back. He can’t be like that. “How are you not angry?” Because himself is angry. Very angry. At Voldemort, at the whole wizarding world, at Dumbledore, at anyone who put Harry in that position, and even at Harry for acting it was all normal.

Harry shrugs. “It was almost fifteen years ago. There’s no need in being angry now. I’m fine. Everything’s fine.”

“Everything’s not fine, Harry! You were sent to die, and for what? Did you at least know you were going to survive?”

Harry shakes his head sheepishly.

“And what if you had really died, then, uh?”

“It would have been worth it.”

“Worth it? For who?” He knows he is talking too loudly, to angrily, but he can’t stop those feelings from storming out.

“For everyone.”

“Everyone? What about you?”

Harry shrugs and turns away. “It doesn’t matter, now, does it?

“But it did matter then!” Draco erupts. “Why do you—”

“It had to be done,” Harry simply says, interrupting him. “And it had to be done that way.”

“That’s fucking fucked up,” Draco seethes, running his hands through his own hair.

“Yeah,” Harry chuckles. “Welcome to my life.”

The fact that he takes it with so much lightness makes Draco wonder what else has been going on in Harry’s life that he doesn’t know about – that the world doesn’t know about. He always assumed most things about Harry Potter was public knowledge, especially what happened during the war, but the more he gets to know him, the more he realises how wrong he was.

“And no one knows this? Really?”

“Well, Ron and Hermione know, obviously. And Snape and Dumbledore used to, but they almost took that to the grave with them. And… you, now. But that’s it. And I don’t want anyone else to know. Ever. Some things must die with me.”

His look is stern, and Draco nods.

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Thanks.”

“But how—”

“Draco. Can we… not talk about this anymore? It’s not exactly a fun time of my life, and I… can we just stop? It had to be done, and I did it, and I’m still here to tell the tale, and that’s all there is to know about it.”

His tone is so decisive that Draco can only nod in agreement.

Harry gives the same sad smile as earlier and, this time, Draco realises that the pity isn’t directed outward, but inward. He leans forward again and pulls Harry against him. Harry scoots closer and nuzzles his nose in Draco’s neck. They just rock back and forth for a bit and, this time, Draco is the one rubbing Harry’s back.

“Sorry, this was some heavy shit I dropped on you,” Harry finally whispers against his skin.

“Don’t apologize,” Draco snaps back.

Harry laughs, tickling his neck. “Yeah, alright.”

“Is this…” Draco starts, not sure if it’s safe to continue. “Is this why you didn’t come back to Hogwarts, after the war?”

“A bit, maybe. But not really. It just… I just thought it was more important that I stayed with Teddy ad Andromeda that year, and that I’d go back after, when things would be easier. And then we had started the orphanage, and I thought I would go back the year after, when it was done… and I kept pushing it back and, well, I didn’t go back at all, in the end.” Harry sits up and pushes his hair back from his face. “I guess that’s it, now, I can say that I will never finish Hogwarts. I don’t need it, anyway, to do what I do.”

“And yet you still want to wake up to it every day,” Draco says before he can stop.

Harry laughs. “Well, I still love the place. Besides,” he adds as he puts his hand on Draco’s cheek, “We had so much fun, there, you and I, didn’t we?”

“That’s one way to put it,” Draco answers as he leans into the touch.

“One day,” Harry whispers as he leans forward to kiss him, “I’ll tell you about that time I took polyjuice potion to follow you inside your common room.”

“You wha—” Draco starts before being silenced by Harry’s lips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have moved and spent the last 3 days moving boxes, driving and cleaning (in no specific order), and now the itnernet is terrible until my line is activated.  
> i hope this chapter actually posts.


	10. Chapter 10

“Sorry I’m late,” Harry pants, “I was finishing the summer program with Amantha and Padma wanted it on her desk tomorrow morning. You didn’t wait too long, I hope?”

Harry is still catching his breath, hands on his knees, and Draco stares at him with his usual blank face.

“I had the time to have a lovely chat with a tiny fellow named Matty. I believe I know his full life story, now.”

“I’m sorry,” Harry laughs. “He’s a sweet kid, but he does have an awful lot to say.”

“I could see that. Luckily, someone took him back in. I just hope it was one of your people.”

Harry raises up, his breath back somewhere close to normal. “Sorry I kept you waiting. I make you come all the way up here, the least I could do is be on time.”

“Well, I’m here, am I not?”

Harry stares at him and can’t help smiling. “Yeah. Thanks for coming.” He must admit, he is surprised that, after everything he dumped on him the other time, Draco still wants to hang out with him and doesn’t seem to consider him any differently. They haven’t mentioned it since, and Harry is all the happier about it, but he can’t help fearing that it will all come to hit him in the back at some point.

He fears that less and less each time he sees Draco, though. Because he’s still here, even after everything else, and that has to count for something, right?

“So, what about this summer program?” Draco asks as they start walking toward the Three Broomsticks. “Isn’t there less kids to entertain, since school is ending?”

“Yeah, but we’ve got the orphans who live at Hogwarts during the year coming back, plus we’re organizing some summer camps. We’ve got a quidditch training camp in collaboration with the Harpies! And another one focusing on magical plants. Neville said he’s got some fine specimen he brought back from the Sahara. Plus, you know, day trips to the beach or to London, plus the usual activities. Summer are actually more exhausting for us than the school year, where everything is already calibrated around class.”

“And you’re going to spend your entire summer here, surrounded by kids? That’s not much of a holiday.”

“Actually, I start by going down to London to pick Teddy up at the train with Andromeda, then we spend a few days with her before going hiking in Norway for a full week.” Harry is so excited about this. There is something frustrating in knowing that Teddy is right there, in Hogwarts, all year, and that he can’t see him. Getting one full week, alone with him? It’s his treat more than Teddy’s, if he’s completely honest. At thirteen, the boy probably would rather spend time with his friends than his old godfather. “What about you?” he asks Draco as he opens the door for him. Any summer plans?”

“I’ll be going to France at some point. To visit Pansy.”

“Oh. Nice.”

“Zabini might come along too, but you know how he is.”

Harry doesn’t know how Zabini is at all, but, if Draco is to be believed, the answer is: unreliable.

“But that’s it,” Draco finishes. “Some of us have jobs that aren’t about playing with kids all day.”

“Hey, I do other things!” Harry protests, but he can see Draco’s smile as they take place at their usual table. “But hey, if you’re around at that time, I’m having a birthday party at my house in London on the 31st, you should come, if you want. It’s just a small gathering with friends, there are usually around twenty of us depending on everyone’s plans, so it’s nothing big.”

Harry hopes this has successfully passed as a casual invitation, and not something he’s been rehearsing in his head all day. He really wants Draco to be there, but he doesn’t want to make too big a deal of it, afraid he’ll scare him.

“I’ll see,” Draco answers with his usual half-smile, arms crossed in front of him on the table.

“Amazing. This is gonna be a great summer, I can feel it.”

“What, because I said I may consider going to your birthday party?”

“Obviously, yes. Why else?” Harry laughs, and he sees Draco rolling his eyes.

“Hey, boys, nice to see you,” Rosmerta says as she puts their usual butterbeers and fries between them. “It’s been a while since we hadn’t seen that boyfriend of your, Harry, I started thinking he dumped your ass.”

“What?” Harry says before laughing nervously. “No, Draco isn’t my boyfriend, we’re just friends! I could never get someone like him, can’t you see?” he adds, hoping to put this conversation behind them as a joke.

“Yeah, right,” Rosmerta laughs. “You guys enjoy your meal, and call me if I can get anything else.”

“Thanks, you’re amazing, as usual.”

He puts a fry into his mouth and turns to Draco to find him frozen, staring daggers at him. “What?” he asks, feeling panic start to rise in him.

“Is me being your boyfriend so laughable, Potter?”

“What? No! It’s just… that’s not what we are, right? We’re just…”

“We’re just what, Potter?” His arms are still crossed in front of him, and all trace of his half-smile is gone.

Harry’s heart is beating fast again, and this time it has nothing to do with any type of physical effort. “I don’t know!” he yells-whisper. “I don’t know what we are! I thought we were friends? Casual? You obviously can’t be my boyfriend, you—”

“I what? I’m too Slytherin? Too Malfoy? Not good enough for the Chosen One?”

“Stop calling me that!” This is not going at all where he wanted it to go. “And that’s not what I meant! I don’t think I’m too good for you!”

“Then what do you think, Potter? Enlighten me.”

“I just thought that his couldn’t work, because well, you’re you, and I’m me, and I didn’t think you’d want to…”

“That I would want what? To be with you? And why exactly, Potter, do you think I’m here, in fucking Scotland, up to three times a week?”

“Well, it’s for your job, right?”

“That ended a month ago! And, spoiler alert, I don’t come here because of a deeply rooted fondness for kids, or quidditch, or fries, or whatever shenanigans you decided to pull me into that day. But you know what?” Draco says as he gets up. “If all of this is just _casual_ to you, then I’d better leave now.”

“Draco, wait!” Harry yells, shooting after him. “Rosmerta, I swear I’ll pay next time, put this on my bill,” he says as he passes the counter.

He feels the whole bar looking at them, but he can’t care about that right now, when Draco’s long stride have already taken him to the door.

“Draco!” He yells again once in the street. “Don’t go like that, let me explain!”

Draco turns swiftly to him, fists tight against his thighs.

“Explain what, Potter? How this was all fun and games for you, as long as you could hide me like your snake tattoo, but as soon as it starts getting real, you laugh it all down, because you don’t want people _making assumptions_ , right? You know, I thought maybe you had changed, but all your big speeches about unity are just that, speeches, right? So I’m done. I will not be your dirty little secret, or your repentance, or whatever the fuck that was for you. Alright? I’m done.”

And with a pop he disappears, and Harry is left alone with his explanations on the tongue and thousands of thoughts swirling in his head.

***

“Draco? Do you have a minute?”

Draco stops in the ministry’s corridor and internally rolls his eyes at the sound of Granger’s voice.

“Good morning, Hermione.”

The name still tastes weird in his mouth.

“Could you come in? It won’t be long.” She invites him into her office, and he has no choice but to follow.

She closes the door behind him then goes behind her desk, where she retrieves a bag Draco is sure he’s seen somewhere. She hands it to him.

“Harry asked me to give you this when I saw you. He said he’s been trying to reach you, but that you wouldn’t answer neither his owls nor his floo messages, so this was the only way he thought to get your things back to you. He also told me to tell you there’s a note in it, but that you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to.”

She stares at him as he takes the bag, his mind suddenly blank. What the fuck is Potter playing at?

“You know, she adds, I don’t know exactly what happened between you two, he didn’t tell me anything expect that he messed up bad, and I won’t pry but, in case you hadn’t noticed: Harry is probably the most oblivious person I know – well, apart from Ron, I guess,” she winces. “If you don’t put something straight under his nose, he probably won’t get the hint. I mean, there’s a reason he wasn’t a Ravenclaw,” she tries to joke.

Draco is frozen in his spot, trying to understand what she’s saying. “You… knew?” he finally asks.

Granger nods as she walks to sit behind her desk. “Yes, he told us when he was in London. But, even if he hadn’t, it was pretty obvious. Ginny guessed it within the first minute of seeing you two together and called us the next day to gossip, Padma told me the last time I ran into her that it was nice the two of you were ‘hanging out’ – yes, she did the quotation marks with her fingers –, and even old Wilhemina Vanstock asked me the other day if the young Malfoy who was with Potter at the fundraiser was his lover, because if not, she would tap that.”

Draco winces. “Isn’t she in her eighties?”

“Yes. I can still give you her card, though, if you’re done with Harry,” she smiles, twisting her hands.

Draco absentmindedly shakes his head and sits in front of her. So, everyone knew?

“Harry asked us not to say anything to anyone,” she adds, still staring at him, “because he was convinced you wouldn’t want that.” She lets a silence in and, seeing him answer nothing, she continues. “Look, if you don’t want to be with Harry for whatever reason, that’s entirely up to you. But if you like him even a little bit, maybe you should read that note he left you. Anyway, it’s not my place to tell you what to do, and you’re a grown man, so you can also just ignore everything I said and do what you want.”

Is she trying to tell him that Potter actually wants to be with him? Draco’s mind is circling back to every interaction he had with him over the past few months, looking for clues he might have missed or words he might have misinterpreted.

She gets up as if to lead him to the door.

“Is it true that he died? During the battle of Hogwarts?” Draco spurts out.

She stops, and sits back down, carefully considering him. “Did he tell you that?” she asks slowly.

“He let it slip once.”

She stares at him a bit more before answering. “Yes. It’s true.” After another silence, she asks: “What are you going to do with that information?”

Draco shrugs. “Nothing. He asked me not to tell anyone.”

She nods, letting out a sigh.

Draco frowns. “I’m not a dick, you know. Just because him and I are done doesn’t mean I’ll go out spilling his secrets. That’s not my story to tell.” He feels a bit offended she would think that, but that’s probably fair enough, considering their history.

“Good. Thank you.” She looks toward the library next to her desk, as if considering her next words. “You know, that fucked him up quite a lot. Dying, I mean, and learning that he was always supposed to,” she adds, turning back to Draco. “Well, his whole childhood probably fucked him up – I know it fucked _me_ up, in a way, and I’m not him, nothing was expected of me, and there was no prophecy about me—”

“What prophecy?” Draco interrupts.

She quickly glances away before coming back to him. “If he didn’t tell you, I guess that’s not my secret to tell.”

What the fuck is that prophecy story? Was there actually one, after all?

“Anyway,” Granger continues, “we all saw and lived a lot of things before we turned eighteen, you included, that no teenager should have to see or live. And if I believed this helped us turn into the adults we are today, I also think it could have fucked us up beyond recognition. And I’m very glad that Harry, even if he has his issues, is living a relatively sane adult life today. But it took him a very long time to get there. After the war, there was a point where I thought we wouldn’t get him back. Learning that he was meant to die basically obliterated all his plans for the future, because he didn’t see himself with a future anymore. That’s why he didn’t come back to Hogwarts, that’s why things ended with Ginny, that’s why he never became an Auror, and a lot of other things. Of course, I tell you that today, with the distance I now have from it, and it’s only my point of view. At the time, we were all too caught up in the moment to interpret anything. In a sense, Harry was very lucky to have Teddy. He focused all of his attention and hopes on him, and his determination to give him the home and family he didn’t have himself as a child is probably what saved him, in the long run.”

“That’s what led him to the orphanage,” Draco says, for lack of anything better, as he’s still trying to understand what she’s telling him.

“Yes. Teddy gave him a purpose when he didn’t have any. And in the past decade, he’s accomplished amazing things, and I believe that he is reasonably happy in his life. But, even if Teddy isn’t his sole focus anymore and he’s got a lot of things going on, the one thing Harry hasn’t gotten back to doing since the war is building a life for himself. He lives in a dorm room at his school, he spends all of his waking time with kids or working or helping anyone who asks him, and all of his money on the school or on his friends projects. And he’s a great friend, a devoted godfather and an amazing teacher, I’m not belittling anything he does. But, apart from his broomsticks – and maybe his tattoos, but that’s an entirely different story –, I haven’t seen him get excited about anything for himself for years. Until you.”

Draco feels more and more uncomfortable under her scrutinous stare. Where is she getting to?

“Sure, he’s dated before, a bit, but always as if he was looking for something specific and then got disappointed when he didn’t find it. But you made him happy, even if he was too dumb to tell you – or maybe even to tell himself.”

Draco feels like he’s being lectured by a teacher who is way too smart for him, and he doesn’t like the feeling.

She leans forward and plants her elbows on the desk.

“Look, I get that Harry can be infuriating – trust me. He’s been my best friend for twenty years, I love him to death and I would follow him to the end of the world – and you know that it’s not just a saying, I literally did. And yet, sometimes, I want to shake him so hard just to get his brains back into place, because he can be both the most brilliant person I know and the dumbest dumbass on this planet.” She smiles, and Draco can’t help but smile back. “What I mean is, I understand why you may be mad at him, and I guess you two are always gonna butt heads, whatever happens, because that’s just who you are and how you’ve always been, but if you like him, maybe you should give it a try. And, well, if you are what it takes to see my best friend happier than he’s been in fifteen years, then I’ll take it gladly, and so will everyone else around him.”

“Should I thank you for your blessings?” he sneers – but his tone lacks sarcasm.

She laughs. “You are free to do whatever you want with everything I told you – except repeat it to anyone else, of course. I trust you, whatever you choose, to keep Harry’s secrets, as you said you would.”

The look she gives him turns his throat dry, and he has to swallow forcefully.

“I will.”

“Good.” She leans back on her chair, and it takes a few seconds of silence for Draco to understand this is the end of the conversation.

He gets up and, waving the bag, says: “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” she nods.

She’s already shuffling parchment as he walks himself to the door. As it closes behind him, he thinks that Harry and him seem to have more in common than he actually thought.

***

Harry knocks before his determination evaporate. It takes a few seconds before he hears footsteps and the door opens.

“Hi,” he starts before Draco can say anything or close it back on his nose. “I know you probably don’t want to see me, and I probably should have taken the hint from when you didn’t answer me all the other times I owled you, but I promise I won’t be long, so please listen? You don’t have to say anything.” Fuck, he’s starting to sound pleading.

Draco leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, staring at him. Harry takes it as an authorization to continue.

“Look, I’m not gonna beat around the bush. I like you. And I don’t care if anybody else knows. Hell, most people already know, apparently? And I don’t give a fuck about that. I don’t give a fuck about your past either, I told you that before. I like you, with the good and the bad and the screw ups. Your past doesn’t get to define who you are today. I don’t want my past to define me, so I think it’s only fair that I apply the same standards to other people. You’re not my dirty little secret. You never were. I want you to know that, even if… even if you don’t like me. I like you. And I’ve liked you since the first time we’ve slept together. I didn’t use you. I just thought…” He puts his hand through his hair – talking under Draco’s silence and scrutiny is harder than he thought it would be. “I just thought _you_ didn’t want people to know, because, well, I’m not like you, or your friends, or the people around you – and by that I mean that you’ve made a life for yourself, and you’re successful in what you do, and you probably have a lot going on without me nagging you to watch over kids with me, and I didn’t think you’d want my interference in your life, when I’m just… well, I’m just me. I prefer hanging out with kids than adults because that’s less stressful, I’m messy, I’m too scared to live on a house on my own, I didn’t even finish Hogwarts, and I’m not a wordly Londoner who knows hip places and any interesting thing that may be going on. I’m not like you.” The light in the stairwell goes out, and Harry waves his arms over his head to get it back. “I’m messed up, and I will probably always be. And, well, since you never suggested we made plans, or involved me in your life in any way, I just assumed you didn’t want that. Me. And maybe I was wrong? I don’t know. I’m often wrong.” He sighs. “Anyway. I said I wouldn’t be long, so I’m gonna stop rambling. The point is, I like you. And I don’t want to hide it.” He raises his arm, showing the snake curled around his naked wrist. “I’m done hiding. And, well, I’m leaving tomorrow to Norway with Teddy, but I’ll be back in a week, so… if you want to talk, or anything, I will be at the Three Broomsticks next Thursday, from five thirty. If you don’t come, I’ll stop bothering you for good. And if you come…” he shrugs with a small smile. “Well, we’ll take it from there, I guess?”

Draco is still staring, his lips pursed.

“Okay. That’s it now. I’m done. I’ll leave you be, I have to pack. Goodnight, I guess? And if you want to see me… well, you’ll know where to find me.”

Draco has the smallest of nod, probably to acknowledge he’s heard him. Harry waves awkwardly and turns back to the stairs.

He’s halfway through the first flight when he’s stopped.

“Harry?”

He turns back expectantly, and Draco is standing in the rectangle of his door, arms at his side, staring at him, his face impenetrable. But then he just shakes his head, turns around and closes the door.

Harry sighs and keeps walking down. The light in the stairwell goes out again.


	11. Chapter 11

Harry barges in through the door, wand in hand.

“What’s up?” he asks feverishly as he runs to Roemerta. “What’s the emergency?”

She nods toward the table next to the fireplace. “You’ve got a visitor, lovely.”

Harry turns and finally sees Draco, and his face has this weird reaction between a wince and a smile. “Oh.” He puts away his wand and runs his hand through his hair. “Sorry for, uh, causing a commotion,” he says to Rosmerta.

She laughs. “You’re the one with a commotion, my boy.”

He waves at her awkwardly and starts walking toward Draco. “You could have just owled me, you know,” he says as he draws the chair facing him.

Draco feels weird at this reversal of places, each sitting in each other’s usual spot. He tries to stay as composed as usual, though. He’s prepared his speech, and he will stick to it.

“I wasn’t sure you would come.”

“Of course I would have,” he smiles sadly. “Just because you stood me up last night doesn’t mean I would completely forsake you from my life.”

Draco has to look away. If Harry keeps looking a him like that while saying that kind of things, Draco will forget all of his speech before he has even started.

“Something came up.”

“It’s alright, you don’t owe me any explanation.” Of course he would say that.

“How was Norway?” Draco asks, to clear his mind.

“It was great. Teddy loved it. But I’m guessing you didn’t ask Rosmerta to send me an emergency message just to see pictures from my trip.”

To avoid his smile, Draco’s eyes fall onto Harry’s hands on the table. The snake is curled up inside his wrist, sleeping.

“You’re right,” he says without taking his eyes off it. “I didn’t.”

“Is this for me?” Harry asks, pointing at one of the two butterbeers sitting on the table.

Draco nods. Harry grabs it and take a sip. He’s still staring at him, waiting for him to talk.

Right. He came here to talk. He looks up at Harry.

“I’m messed up too. And I don’t have to explain you why, I guess, because you know exactly who I am and where I come from. And I can’t change that.”

Harry extends a hand to him, but Draco crosses his arms, tucking his own under his flanks. He’s not ready for that. Not yet. Harry’s hand stays in the middle of the table.

“And I have found out that I live a better life if I keep a distance with people. It works better for me. If I don’t let people in, they can’t hurt me. Except… you always had a spectacular talent when it came to getting under my skin.”

He risks a small smile to Harry and sees him smile back. He uncrosses his arms, but still doesn’t reach for Harry’s hand.

“I have accused you of making assumptions about me, and yet I have been guilty of the exact same thing toward you. And for that, I… I apologize.”

Harry laughs and reaches to grab his hand before Draco can stop him.

“Apology accepted. But you didn’t have to be so formal about it,” he says, squeezing Draco’s fingers.

Draco clears his throat. “I am not done yet.”

“Oh, alright. Go on,” Harry invites him, without letting go of his hand.

It’s harder to focus like that, but Draco finds the strength somewhere in him. He knows he _could_ let go of Harry’s hand, but he doesn’t want to.

“I assumed you and I were too different, but it turns out we are probably more alike that I thought. So maybe we should – _I_ should – tone down our assumptions about each other and have a real conversation, right? Because I… um… I enjoy your company too.”

Harry laughs and leans forward.

“I’m sorry, you what?”

Draco rolls his eyes.

“Don’t make me repeat it.”

“Oh, I will. You what?”

“For some fucking mysterious reason, I don’t hate you,” Draco hisses between his teeth, looking away.

“Would it really kill you to say it once?” Harry’s smile is very close to him.

Refusing to think about anyone around them who may be watching, Draco stares at him and whispers: “I like you, alright?”

Harry laughs and, closing the gap, kisses him. “Good,” he whispers as he briefly leans back, “because I like you too.”

And then he kisses him again and Draco forgets everything about _conversations_.

***

“Careful with the glasses, Teddy, you don’t have to take that many at one time.”

“It’s okay, Ron showed me how to—”

Harry runs out of the kitchen at the sudden sound of broken glass, and finds the glasses repairing themselves on their way to the plate under Draco’s wand.

“Hey!” he grins. “You’re early. Teddy, this is Draco. Draco, Teddy.”

“Nice to meet you,” Draco says.

“You’re my cousin, right?” Teddy asks. “How come we’ve never met?”

“You’ll ask your grandmother,” Harry answers. “Come on, give me those glasses before they fall again, I’ll take them. You can go and grab the cutlery. It’s on the kitchen table.” He grabs the tray from the teenager’s hands and signals Draco to follow him. “Good thing you’re here, you’re gonna help set things up. Could you open that door for me? And leave it open, thanks.”

Andromeda is already around the table they put in the garden, putting the tablecloth with the help of Neville. Rose is running around them and laughing, Ron on her heels, close enough to catch her if she falls but with enough distance to make her believe she’s winning the race.

“Careful, Rosie, I’m coming with fragile stuff,” Harry warns her as he approaches the table.

He’s really happy Draco’s here, but he must admit he’s a bit worried about everyone else’s reaction. The were all pretty cool when he told them, but there’s a difference between knowing and seeing.

Ron catches Rose just before she collides with Harry, and she raises her head toward Draco.

“I don’t know you,” she tells him.

“That’s Draco, Rosie,” Ron answers before Harry can say anything. “Uncle Harry’s boyfriend.”

Rose stares at him with a frown, then nods and extends her little hand. “Hi, I’m Rose Granger Weasley. What’s your full name?”

Looking a bit awkward, Draco leans forward and shakes her hand. “Hi, Rose. I’m Draco Malfoy.”

“That’s a cool name,” she says after thinking about it. “Hey, Harry, can I help you? I’m three, now, I’m old enough to help!”

Putting the glasses on the table, Harry looks at Ron rising up to face Draco. Like his daughter, he extends his hand. “Hi, mate.” His tone is a bit strained, but overall not aggressive.

Harry sees Draco shake it, and his attention is diverted by Rose, pulling on the tablecloth. “Hold on, Rosie, I’ll show you what you can do to help,” He says, grabbing the cloth before all the glasses shatter to the floor – again.

***

“Hi, Weasley,” Draco says as he shakes Ron’s hand. “Your daughter is…” he turns and sees her being dragged back from the table by a laughing Harry. “… lively.”

Ron laughs. “Yeah, she’s got a lot of energy. My mom says Fred and George were the same, at her age. I think we have a few interesting years coming ahead of us.”

“Hey, Ron, could you come help me put the flowers?” Neville yells behind him. “Hi, Draco.” He only gives him a short nod, which Draco returns.

He was fearing the worst from tonight. It’s the first time he’s properly introduced to Harry’s gang as his boyfriend, and he was expecting common courtesy at best. He came early hoping to catch Harry on his own before it all starts and he gets busy, but apparently he wasn’t he only one with that idea.

“Draco?” He turns to face Andromeda. She looks both so like and unlike his own mother it’s disturbing. “You look good, my boy,” she smiles at him. It’s a pleasure to see you.” Without waiting for his answer, she pulls him into a hug. As she lets him go, she still holds his shoulders. “You look so much like Narcissa. How is she doing, these days? I haven’t heard from her in a while.”

“You… you’re in touch with my mother?”

She nods, still smiling. “Yes. We have had our differences in the past, and we still do, sometimes, but she’s still my sister. We thought we both can do with a little more family in our lives.”

“Yes, of course. I’m sorry, it’s just, she never…”

“Don’t worry, Draco. I don’t blame you. Her and I still have a lot to work through. But I’m very glad you’re here tonight. I can’t wait to get to know you better. Harry can’t keep you to himself forever, right?”

“What are you saying about me?” Harry yells from the other side of the table.

Andromeda laughs and her hands drop from Draco’s shoulders. “Just saying you’ve been very selfish about your boy there.”

Harry rolls his eyes. “Please wait at least until tomorrow to scare him away.”

“I promise I’ll be nice,” she yells back.

Her attention is diverted with the arrival of Teddy with hands full of knives.

Harry joins Draco and puts his hand on his lower back. “Sorry about all that. Is this too much? If this is too much, you can leave, you know. I won’t blame you.”

Draco sighs. “I’m not gonna leave. Well, except if someone challenges me to a duel, maybe. I wouldn’t want to duel on your birthday.” He smiles and briefly puts his hand on Harry’s cheek.

All these public demonstration of affection are still very alien to him, and he’s still afraid he’s going to get booed every time he gets too close to Harry, but, sometimes, he pushes through his fears. So far, no one has chastised him for it.

Harry leans and kisses him briefly. “Thanks for coming. Come on, help me bring the food outside.”

Draco lets himself be swirled in the frenzy of setting everything up and saying hi to everyone who arrives in the middle of it. Hermione greets him warmly with a knowing smile, Ginny instantly asks him if they can now discuss Harry’s kissing techniques, George says, as he shakes his hand, that he would love to travel back in time to announce the news to his fifteen-years-old self, and Luna hugs him like they’re old friends. With each new arrival, he grows less and less nervous, and even starts to relax a little. Maybe Harry was right, and it won’t be _that_ bad.

“Are you okay?” Harry asks as he sits against him on a bean chair later in the night, when only food remnants are left in the bowls and the fairy lights have been turned on to illuminate the garden.

“Well, Luna just explained to me how they had to publish public pleasing stories like the investigation on Gringott’s real protections to be able to publish actual important articles like the one on the rare Siberian winged troll, so I’m not sure.”

Harry smiles back at him and puts his hand on Draco’s knee. “Well, she is really passionate.”

“That’s the least you could say.”

Harry lays down his head in the curve of Draco’s neck. “I’m very happy you’re here,” he whispers.

Draco grabs Harry’s hand and intertwine their fingers. “I’m happy to be here,” he answers – and realises it’s true. He knows there are still hard conversations ahead, and anxiety over the world knowing about them but, right now, he’s happy. “Harry birthday, Harry,” he whispers back.

He feels Harry smile as he kisses the crook of his neck. As he looks down at their hands, he sees Harry’s snake tattoo on the thumb that caresses his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it !  
> Thank you all for reading, i hope you enjoyed it and that it brought you joy (and other feels).


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